.    .  , 


Photogrctph  by  1-dmonsto* 


ROBERT  M.   LA  FOLLETTE 


LA  FOLLETTE'S 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

A  Personal  Narrative  of  Political 
Experiences 

BY 

ROBERT  M.   LA   FOLLETTE 


ILLUSTRATED 


MADISON,    WIS. 

THE  ROBERT  M.  LA  FOLLETTE  CO. 
1913 


Copyright,  1911,   19l%>  by 
ROBERT  M.  LA  FOLLETTE 

All  rights  reserved,  including  that  of 
translation  into  foreign  languages, 
including  the  Scandinavian 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction  .      .      ,^<,    'V     .      .r,.      .        ix 

CHAPTER 

I.     Political  Beginnings    '  .  ' J.  •    .      .         3 
II.     In  the  House  of  Representatives  .       49 

III.  The  Reed  Congress  and  the  New 

National  Issues    .      .      .      .      .       91 

IV.  The  Crucial  Period  of  My  Public  - 

Life      1    >v     ......     135 

V.     Six  Years'  Struggle  with  the  Wis 
consin  Bosses        .      .      .      .      .     176 

VI.     My  First  Term  as  Governor  and 

the  Problems  I  Had  to  Meet     .     225 

VII.     How    We    Passed    the    Railroad 

Taxation  Laws 278 

VIII.  Progressive  Government  Produces 
Business  Prosperity :  What  Was 
Accomplished  in  Wisconsin  .  319 

IX.  Alone  in  the  Senate:  Experiences 
With  Roosevelt;  Railroad  Rate 
Regulation 370 

X.     Reinforcements:  A  National  Pro 
gressive  Movement    ....     427 
v 


267416 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XI.  Why  I  Became  a  Candidate  for 
the  Presidency;  Taft's  Unavail 
ability;  A  Complete  History  of 
Roosevelt's  Course  After  His 
Return  from  Africa;  Formation 
of  the  Organized  Progressive 
Movement;  Pressure  for  a  Real 
Progressive  Candidate  .  .  .  476 

"  XII.  The  True  History  of  the  Campaign 
of  1912  for  the  Republican 
Nomination  to  the  Presidency  .  530 

XIII.  Why  I  Continued  as  a  Candidate; 
Roosevelt  Never  a  Progressive; 
His  Record 671 

Appendix:  Address  of  Robert  M.  La 
Follette  at  the  Annual  Banquet 
of  the  Periodical  Publishers' 
Association,  Philadelphia,  Feb 
ruary  2,  1912,  Dealing  with  the 
History  of  the  Growth  of  the 
Power  Represented  in  Trusts, 
Consolidated  Railroads  and 
Consolidated  Banking  Interests 
Controlling  Money  and  Credits, 
and  Suggestions  for  Meeting 
Recognized  Evils 762 

Index  799 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Robert  M.  LaFollette      , .         .        .       Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

Birthplace         .......        6 

La  Follette  Family  (from  a  daguerrotype)        .      12 
La  Follette  at  Nine  Years  of  Age      .         .         .18 
President  John  R.  Bascom        .        '.        .         .      28 
General  George  E.  Bryant         .         .         .         .46 

Mrs.  Robert  M.  La  Follette,  early  90's  .  .  66 
La  Follette,  when  elected  to  Congress  .*  .  84 
Judge  Robert  G.  Siebecker  .  .  v  .  140 

Philetus  Sawyer  . 170 

A.  R.  Hall          .        .        .        .        .        .        .212 

Samuel  A.  Harper     .         ...t      .        .        •        .218 

Mrs.  La  Follette,  a  late  portrait       .         .         .314 
Wisconsin's  first  Railway  Commission      .         .    348 
Senator  Jonathan  P.  Dolliver    ....    434 

Fac-simile  page  stenographic  transcript  Senate 

proceedings 478 

Fola,  Robert,  Philip,  and  Mary  La  Follette  .  494 
La  Follette  Campaigning  .  .  .  .  .  562 
The  La  Follette  home,  Maple  Bluff  Farm, 

Madison,  Wisconsin  .  .  .  .612 

Theodore  Roosevelt 684 

William  Jennings  Bryan  .....  750 

vii 


INTRODUCTION 

IN  THE  preparation  of  this  narrative  I  have 
no   literary   intent  whatsoever.     I  am  not 
writing  for  the  sake  of  writing,  nor  for  the 
mere  purpose  of  relating  the  events  of  my  politi 
cal  life.     I  have  not  yet  reached  the  secluded 
age  when  a  man  writes  his  life  story  for  the 
enjoyment  the  exercise  gives  him. 

Every  line  of  this  autobiography  is  written 
for  the  express  purpose  of  exhibiting  the  struggle 
for  a  more  representative  government  which  is 
going  forward  in  this  country,  and  to  cheer  on 
the  fighters  for  that  cause.  Most  of  these  chap 
ters  were  written  at  Washington  between  the 
close  of  one  important  Congressional  struggle 
and  the  opening  of  another.  The  final  chapters 
were  written  after  the  National  Convention  and 
before  the  presidential  election  of  1912.  Thus 
the  entire  narrative  may  be  said  to  have  been 
written  from  the  field. 

ix 


INTRODUCTION 

We  have  long  rested  comfortably  in  this 
country  upon  the  assumption  that  because  our 
form  of  government  was  democratic,  it  was 
therefore  automatically  producing  democratic 
results.  Now,  there  is  nothing  mysteriously 
potent  about  the  forms  and  names  of  demo 
cratic  institutions  that  should  make  them  self- 
operative.  Tyranny  and  oppression  are  just 
as  possible  under  democratic  forms  as  under 
any  other.  ^We  are  slow  to  realize  that  democ 
racy  is  a  life;  and  involves  continual  struggle. 
It  is  only  as  those  of  every  generation  who  love 
democracy  resist  with  all  their  might  the  en 
croachments  of  its  enemies  that  the  ideals  of 
representative  government  can  even  be  nearly 
approximated. 

The  essence  of  the  Progressive  movement,  as 
I  see  it,  lies  in  its  purpose  to  uphold  the  funda 
mental  principles  of  representative  governfl^it. 
It  expresses  the  hopes  and  desires  of  millions  of 
common  men  and  women  who  are  willing  to 
fight  for  their  ideals,  to  take  defeat  if  necessary, 
and  still  go  on  fighting. 

Fortunes  of  birth,  temperament  and  political 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

environment  have  thrown  me  into  this  struggle, 
and  have  made  me  in  some  degree  a  pioneer  in  the 
Progressive  movement.  I  am  therefore  writing 
my  own  story  in  these  pages  because  I  believe 
this  to  be  the  best  means  of  mapping  out  the 
whole  field  of  conflict  and  exposing  the  real 
character  of  the  enemy. 

I  shall  give  as  faithful  an  account  as  I  know 
how,  of  political  events  in  which  I  have  partici 
pated  and  I  shall  characterize  the  strong  men 
whom  I  have  known,  and  especially  I  shall 
endeavor  to  present  those  underlying  motives 
and  forces  which  are  often  undiscerned  in  Ameri 
can  politics. 

I  believe  that  most  thoughtful  readers,  per 
plexed  by  the  conditions  which  confront  the 
country,  will  find  that  they  have  been  meeting 
in  various  guises  the  same  problems  that  I  have 
had  to  meet,  and  that  their  minds  have  con 
sequently  been  traveling  along  much  the  same 
lines  as  mine,  and  toward  much  the  same  con 
clusions.  I  trust  this  book  may  be  the  means 
of  causing  many  men  to  think  as  one  —  and  to 
fight  as  one. 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  express  my  grateful  appre 
ciation  of  the  valuable  assistance  which  Mr. 
Ray  Stannard  Baker  has  given  me  in  the  revi 
sion  of  the  manuscript  for  this  work  and  of  the 
helpful  suggestions  of  Professor  John  R.  Com 
mons  and  his  verification  of  the  statistical  and 
economic  data. 

ROBERT  M.  LA  FOLLETTE. 
Washington,  D.  C., 
October  1,  1912. 


A  PERSONAL  NARRATIVE  OF 
POLITICAL  EXPERIENCES 


CHAPTER  I 

POLITICAL   BEGINNINGS 

FEW  young  men  who  entered  public  life 
thirty  years  ago  had  any  wide  outlook 
upon  affairs,  or  any  general  political 
ideas.  They  were  drawn  into  politics  just  as 
other  men  were  drawn  into  the  professions  or 
the  arts,  or  into  business,  because  it  suited  their 
tastes  and  ambitions.  Often  the  commonest 
reasons  and  the  most  immediate  necessities 
commanded  them,  and  clear  understanding, 
strong  convictions,  and  deep  purposes  were  de 
veloped  only  as  they  were  compelled  to  face 
the  real  problems  and  meet  the  real  temptations 
of  the  public  service. 

My  own  political  experiences  began  in  the 
summer  of  1880  when  I  determined  to  become  a 
candidate  for  district  attorney  of  Dane  County, 
Wisconsin,  and  it  resulted  almost  immediately 


4  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

in  the  first  of  many  struggles  with  the  political 
boss  and  the  political  machine  which  then  con 
trolled,  absolutely,  the  affairs  of  the  State  of 
Wisconsin.  I  was  twenty-five  years  old  that 
summer.  A  year  previously,  in  June  1879,  I 
had  been  graduated  from  the  University  of 
Wisconsin,  and  after  five  months'  study  of  the  law, 
part  of  the  time  in  the  office  of  R.  M.  Bashford, 
and  part  of  the  time  in  the  university  law  school, 
I  had  been  admitted  to  the  bar,  in  February,  1880. 
I  was  as  poverty-stricken  a  young  lawyer  as 
ever  hung  his  shingle  to  the  wind.  I  had  no 
money  at  all.  My  single  term  at  the  university 
law  school  had  been  rendered  possible  only 
through  the  consideration  of  the  faculty  in 
making  an  extraordinary  exception  in  my  case>; 
and  permitting  me  to  enter  without  paying 
the  usual  matriculation  fee.  I  had  no  money 
-  but  as  fine  an  assortment  of  obligations  and 
ambitions  as  any  young  man  ever  had.  I 
had  my  mother  and  sister  to  support,  as  I  had 
supported  them  partially  all  through  my  college 
course  —  and  finally,  I  had  become  engaged  to 
be  married. 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  5 

To  an  impecunious  young  lawyer  almost 
without  clients,  the  district  attorneyship  of 
Dane  County,  paying  at  that  time  the  munifi 
cent  salary  of  $800  a  year  with  an  allowance  of 
$50  for  expenses,  seemed  like  a  golden  oppor 
tunity.  Though  it  appeared  immeasurably 
difficult  of  attainment,  I  determined  to  make  for 
it  with  all  my  strength.  What  I  wanted  was  an 
opportunity  to  work  —  to  practise  my  profes 
sion  —  and  to  make  a  living.  I  knew  that  trial 
work  would  appeal  to  me,  and  I  believed  I  could 
try  criminal  cases  successfully. 

I  had  an  old  horse  which  I  had  used  during 
my  university  course  in  riding  out  to  a  district 
school  I  had  taught  to  aid  in  paying  my  way, 
and  borrowing  a  buggy  and  harness  from  Ben 
Miner,  a  friend  and  supporter,  I  now  began 
driving  through  the  country  and  talking  with 
the  farmers  about  my  candidacy, 

It  was  harvest  time  and  I  remember  how  I 
often  tied  my  horse,  climbed  the  fences,  and 
found  the  farmer  and  his  men  in  the  fields. 

"Ain't  you  over-young?"  was  the  objection 
chiefly  raised. 


C  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

I  was  small  of  stature  and  thin  —  at  that  time. 
I  weighed  only  one  hundred  and  twenty  pounds 
—  and  I  looked  even  younger  than  I  really  was. 
Nor  was  I  then  in  good  health, 
i  Throughout  my  university  course  I  had  been 
compelled  to  do  much  outside  work.  Besides 
teaching  school  I  had  become  proprietor  of  the 
University  Press,  then  the  only  college  paper, 
burdening  myself  with  debt  in  the  purchase. 
It  was  published  bi-monthly,  and  I  not  only  did 
the  editorial  work  but  made  up  the  forms  and 
hustled  for  advertisements  and  subscriptions. 
Under  the  strain  of  all  these  tasks,  added  to 
my  regular  college  work,  my  health,  naturally 
robust,  gave  way,  and  for  four  or  five  years  I 
went  down  under  the  load  at  the  end  of  every 
term  of  court.  A  marked  physical  change  came 
to  me  later  and  I  have  grown  stronger  and 
stronger  with  the  years. 

But  there  were  a  number  of  things  that  helped 
me  in  my  canvass  for  the  nomination.  I  was 
born  in  Primrose  Township,  Dane  County,  only 
twenty  miles  from  Madison,  where  my  father, 
a  Kentuckian  by  birth,  had  been  a  pioneer 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  7 

settler  from  Indiana.  I  knew  farm  ways  and 
farm  life,  and  many  of  the  people  who  were  not 
acquainted  with  me  personally  knew  well  from 
what  family  I  came  —  and  that  it  was  an  honest 
family.  The  people  of  the  county  were  a  mix 
ture  of  New  Englanders,  Norwegians  and  Ger 
mans.  I  had  been  raised  among  the  Norweg 
ians  and  understood  the  language  fairly  well, 
though  I  could  speak  it  only  a  little — but 
even  that  little  helped  me. 

I  also  had  something  of  a  claim  to  recognition 
on  my  own  account.  In  my  last  year  as  a  student 
I  had  been  chosen,  after  preliminary  tests,  to 
represent  the  university  in  the  state  collegiate 
oratorical  contest.  I  had  won  the  prize  at  j 
Beloit  with  an  oration  on  the  character  of/ 
Shakespeare's  "lago"  and  then  I  had  been 
chosen  to  represent  Wisconsin  in  the  interstate 
contest  at  Iowa  City,  Iowa.  This  I  also  won, 
and  when  I  returned  to  Madison,  university 
feeling  ran  to  so  high  a  pitch  that  the  students 
met  me  at  the  train  and  drew  the  carriage  up  the 
hill  to  the  university  where  I  was  formally 
welcomed;  and  that  evening  I  was  given  a  recep- 


8  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

tion  in  the  state-house  at  which  there  were 
speeches  by  William  F.  Vilas,  the  foremost 
citizen  of  Wisconsin  and  afterward  United 
States  Senator,  by  members  of  the  university 
faculty,  and  others.  All  of  this,  of  course,  had 
been  reported  in  the  newspapers,  especially  the 
Madison  newspapers,  so  that  when  I  went  among 
the  farmers,  I  found  that  they  were  able  to  place 
me  at  once. 

Thus,  while  they  considered  me  too  young 
and  inexperienced,  I  made  a  good  many  friends 
—  men  who  began  to  believe  in  me  then,  and 
have  been  my  warm  supporters  ever  since. 

Another  thing  helped  me  substantially  in  my 
canvass.  Many  of  the  farmers  were  disgusted 
with  the  record  of  inefficient  service  in  the 
district  attorney's  office  in  the  recent  past,  which 
had  required  the  employment  of  extra  counsel  in 
trying  cases.  I  promised  them  with  confidence 
that  I  would  do  all  the  work  myself  and  that 
there  should  be  no  extra  fees  to  meet. 

Up  to  this  point  everything  had  been  clear 
sailing.  I  was  asking  the  people  for  an  office  of 
public  service  which  they  had  the  full  power 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  9 

to  give  me;  but  I  had  not  learned  the  very  first 
principles  of  the  political  game  as  it  was  then 
played  —  indeed,  as  it  is  still  played  in  a 
greater  part  of  this  country.  I  knew  practically 
nothing  about  politics  or  political  organization, 
never  at  that  time  having  so  much  as  attended 
a  caucus  or  convention. 

The  Boss  of  Dane  County  was  Colonel  E.  W. 
Keyes,  the  postmaster  of  Mamson.  He  was 
rarely  spoken  of  as  the  "Colonel"  or  "Mr. 
Keyes,"  but  always  then  and  for  many  years 
afterward  simply  as  "the  Boss."  He  had  been 
for  a  long  time  the  boss  of  the  whole  state  but 
stronger  men  were  then  coming  into  the  field 
and  he  was  content  to  exercise  his  sway  over 
Dane  and  neighboring  counties.  He  was  a  very 
sharp,  brusque,  dominating  man,  energetic  in 
his  movements,  and  not  then  very  young.  A 
Bismarck  type  of  man,  he  had  fine  abilities,  and 
if  he  used  the  methods  of  force  and  of  bulldozery 
toward  those  who  opposed  him,  he  was  often 
generous  to  those  who  supported  him.  And 
he  was  big  enough  to  give  excellent  public  serv 
ice  in  the  office  which  he  held  for  so  many  years. 


10  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

He  was  a  good  representative  of  old-time  poli 
tics:  the  politics  of  force  and  secret  manage 
ment.  He  was  absolute  dictator  in  his  own 
territory;  he  could  make  candidates,  and  he 
could  unmake  political  office-holders.  He  fought 
me  for  twenty  years. 

I  cannot  now  remember  just  how  long  I  had 
been  at  my  canvass  before  the  Boss  called 
me  to  account.  My  recollection  is  that  I  went 
in  one  day  to  the  post-office  to  get  my  mail. 
He  had  probably  directed  his  clerks  to  watch 
for  me,  and  I  was  told  that  the  postmaster 
wished  to  see  me.  I  had  known  him,  of  course, 
when  a  student  in  the  university;  he  was  one 
of  the  men  who  had  spoken  at  the  reception 
when  I  returned  from  the  oratorical  contest. 
I  went  to  him  therefore  with  great  friendliness; 
but  I  found  him  in  quite  a  different  mood. 
He  burst  out  upon  me  with  the  evident  purpose 
of  frightening  me  at  once  out  of  all  my 
political  ambitions. 

"You  are  fooling  away  your  time,  sir!"  he 
exclaimed  roughly. 

He  told  me  I  was  wasting  my  money,  that  I 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  11 

had  better  go  to  work,  that  I  had  not  learned 
the  first  lesson  in  politics.  He  told  me  who  the 
next  district  attorney  of  Dane  County  would 
be  —  and  it  was  not  La  Follette! 

Boss  Keyes  did  not  know  it,  but  opposition 
of  that  sort  was  the  best  service  he  could  have 
rendered  me.  It  stirred  all  the  fight  I  had  in 
me. 

"I  intend,"  I  said,  "to  go  on  with  this  can 
vass;  and  I  intend  to  be  elected  district  attorney 
of  Dane  County." 

I  set  my  face,  and  as  soon,  as  I  left  him  I  began 
to  work  more  furiously  than  ever  before.  I 
kept  asking  myself  what  business  Keyes  or  any 
other  man  had  to  question  my  right  of  going 
out  among  the  voters  of  Dane  County,  and 
saying  what  I  pleased  to  them.  And  what  had 
Keyes  more  than  any  other  voter  to  do  with  the 
disposal  of  the  district  attorney  ship? 

I  remember  having  had  a  similar  overmas 
tering  sense  of  jmger  and_wrpng  and__mjustice 
in  my  early  days  in  the  university  —  and  it  led 
to  a  rather  amusing  incident  —  my  first  ex 
perience  as  an  Insurgent.  Speakers,  I  recall, 


12  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

were  to  be  chosen  by  the  students  for  some 
public  occasion.  At  that  time  college  life  was 
dominated  by  two  secret  fraternities;  they  con 
trolled  the  student  meetings,  and  directed  the 
elections.  Most  of  the  students,  of  whom  I  was 
one,  were  outsiders,  or  "scrubs,"  having  little 
or  nothing  to  say  about  the  conduct  of  college 
affairs;  and  I  was  one  of  the  greenest  of  all  the 
"plebs"  —  a  boy  right  from  the  farm.  Well, 
the  fraternities  made  their  slate  and  put  it 
through.  That  night  I  visited  every  non- 
fraternity  man  in  the  university,  and  after  several 
days'  hard  work  we  organized  a  sort  of  anti- 
secret  society  of  some  two  hundred  members. 
Then  we  called  a  new  meeting.  The  whole 
student  body  was  there,  including  the  fraternity 
men.  We  reconsidered  the  action  of  the  previous 
meeting  and  had  an  honest  and  open  election. 

The  same  sort  of  feeling  which  dominated  me 
in  that  boyish  fight  now  drove  me  into  ?,  more 
vigorous  struggle  in  Dane  County.  I  traveled 
by  day  and  by  night,  I  stayed  at  farm-houses,  I 
interviewed  every  voter  in  the  county  whom  I 
could  reach.  The  Boss  was  active,  too,  but  he 


THE    LA    FOLLETTE    FAMILY 

Taken,  in  Primrose  Township,  Wisconsin.     Robert,  about  three  years 

old,  on  his  mother's  knee;  his  sister  Ellen,  now  Mrs.  Dean  Eastman; 

his  sister  Josephine,  now   the   wife   of   Judge   Robert    G.    Siebecker; 

and  his  brother  William. 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  13 

was  so  secure  in  his  undisputed  supremacy  and 
I  was  so  young  and  inexperienced  that  he  did 
not  take  me  seriously  nor  realize  until  afterward 
how  thoroughly  my  work  was  done.  He  was 
dependent  upon  his  organization  made  up  of 
men,  most  of  whom  hoped  sooner  or  later  to 
get  something  from  the  state  or  county  —  some 
little  office  or  job.  But  I  had  gone  behind  all 
this  organization  and  reached  the  voters  them 
selves.  Whatever  success  I  have  attained 
in  politics  since  then  has  been  attained  by 
these  simple  and  direct  means  —  and  not  other-  l" 
wise. 

There  were  five  candidates  at  the  convention. 
Quite  unexpectedly,  between  the  ballots,  a 
Norwegian  named  Eli  Pederson,  a  neighbor  of 
ours,  who  had  known  and  worked  for  my  father 
and  who  called  me  "our  boy,"  made  a  telling 
speech  in  my  behalf.  I  can  see  him  now  —  a 
big,  black-headed,  black-eyed  man  with  a 
powerful  frame,  standing  there  in  the  conven 
tion.  He  was  a  fine  type  of  man,  a  natural-born 
leader  of  his  community,  and  he  spoke  as  one 
having  authority.  It  was  to  him,  I  think,  that 


14  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

at  the  crisis  I  owed  my  nomination,  which  came 
on  the  fifth  ballot. 

This  failure  of  his  well-oiled  machine  as 
tonished  the  Boss  beyond  measure,  and  my  fight 
for  the  nomination  was  nothing  as  compared 
with  the  fight  for  election.  Then,  as  now,  the 
Boss  was  quite  willing  to  support  the  candidate 
of  the  opposite  party  rather  than  to  have  his 
own  authority  questioned  or  defied.  But  the 
university  boys,  who  were  my  strong  friends 
and  supporters,  went  out  and  worked  tooth  and 
nail  for  me  all  over  the  county  —  without  regard 
to  politics  —  and  I  was  elected  by  the  narrow 
majority  of  ninety-three  votes.  In  January, 
1881, 1  was  sworn  in  as  district  attorney  of  Dane 
\/County. 

As  I  look  back  upon  it,  politics  was  very 
different  then  from  now.     In  these  days  funda 
mental  issues  and  policies  are  being  widely  and 
/  earnestly  discussed,  but  at  that  time  the  coun- 
/   try  was  in  a  state  of  political  lethargy.     The 
excitement  and  fervor  which  accompanied  the 
war  had   exhausted   itself,   reconstruction  had 
been  completed,  and  specie  payment  resumed. 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  15 

The  people  had  turned  their  attention  almost 
wholly  to  business  affairs.  The  West  was  to 
be  settled,  railroads  constructed,  towns  founded, 
manufacturing  industries  built  up,  and  money 
accumulated.  In  shortajtjway 'fr  time  'of  expan- 
sjon,  and  of  great  materiaj_  prosperity. 

Put  the  war  and  the  troubled  years  which 
followed  it  had  left  at-  least  one  important 
political  legacy  —  one  of  the  most  powerful  and 
unified  party  organizations  that  ever  existed, 
I  suppose,  anywhere  in  the  world.  I  mean 
the  Republican  party.  We  may  never  see  its 
like  again  in  this  country.  It  had  fought  a 
desperate  war  for  a  great  and  righteous  cause. 
It  had  behind  it  the  passionate  enthusiasm  of  a 
whole  generation  of  men.  It  was  the  party  of 
Lincoln  and  Grant  and  Sherman.  I  remember 
well  the  character  of  the  ordinary  political 
speeches  of  those  years.  Even  well  down  into 
the  eighties  they  all  looked  backward  to  fading 
glories,  they  waved  the  flag  of  freedom,  they 
abused  the  South,  they  stirred  the  war  memories 
of  the  old  soldiers  who  were  then  everywhere 
dominant  in  the  North.  Of  this  old  type  of 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

orator  I  remember  to  have  heard  Zach  Chandler 
of  Michigan,  a  great  figure  in  those  days  —  a 
sort  of  old  Roman,  of  powerful  and  rugged 
personality,  whose  sarcastic  flings  at  the  Demo 
cratic  party  were  accepted  as  the  most  persua 
sive  of  political  argumentation. 

This  unreasoning  loyalty  to  party  which  was 
a  product  of  the  war  drew  thousands  of  young 
men  like  myself  into  its  ranks  with  the  convic 
tion  that  this  was  the  party  of  patriotism.  It  "is 
a  notable  sign  of  robust  political  health  in  these 
days  that  every  young  man  must  have  his  con 
clusive  reasons  for  voting  the  Republican  or  the 

/  Democratic  ticket;  old  party  names  have  lost 
much  of  their  persuasiveness:  men  must  think 
for  themselves  —  and  in  that  fact  lies  the  great 
hope  for  the  future  of  the  nation. 

^v  Garfield  was  the  first  leader  to  impress  me 
—  as  I  think  he  impressed  many  men  of  the 
younger  generation  —  as  facing  forward  in 
stead  of  backward.  He  glorified  the  party, 
it  is  true,  but  he  saw  something  of  the  work 
that  needed  to  be  done.  I  was  greatly  impressed 
with  Garfield:  I  heard  him  at  Madison  in  the 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  17 

summer  after  I  was  graduated.  He  was  a  very 
handsome  man,  of  fine  presence,  dignity  and 
power;  splendid  diction  and  a  rather  lofty 
eloquence.  ^1  do  not  remember  a  suggestion  of 
humor. y  His  address  at  Madison  at  that  time 
was  a  review  of  the  birth  and  services  of  the 
Republican  party.  I  do  not  recall  that  he 
talked  about  the  tariff;  he  was  not  a  high  tariff 
man,  and  even  in  those  days  urged  lower  duties 
and  freer  trade.  I  remember  he  impressed  me 
more  as  a  statesman  and  less  as  a  politician 
than  any  of  the  men  I  had  heard  up  to  that  time. 
But  if  the  old  party  and  the  thrill  of  the  old 
party  slogans  were  still  dominant,  the  issues 
of  the  new  generation  were  beginning  to  make 
themselves  felt.  Already  there  had  been  severe 
local  political  storms.  Sporadic  new  move 
ments  began  forming  soon  after  reconstruction: 
the  great  dark  problems  of  corporations  and 
trusts  and  financial  power  were  appearing  on  the 
horizon.  As  far  back  as  1872  there  had  been  a 
Liberal  Republican  party  organized  to  ask  for 
civil  service  reform,  and  later,  a  Labor  party 
was  organized  to  agitate  the  problems  of  capital 


y 

18  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

and  labor,  the  control  of  banks  and  railroads, 
and  the  disposal  of  public  lands.  In  1876  the 
Greenback  party  came  into  the  field  and  rose 
to  much  prominence  on  a  radical  platform. 

In  the  State  of  Wisconsin  the  Progressive 
^movement  expressed  itself  in  the  rise  to  power 
of  the  Patrons  of  Husbandry.  The  Grange 
movement  swept  four  or  five  middle  western 
states,  expressing  vigorously  the  first  powerful 
revolt  against  the  rise  of  monopolies,  the  ar 
rogance  of  railroads  and  the  waste  and  robbery 
of  the  public  lands.  Those  hard-headed  old 
pioneers  from  New  England  and  from  northern 
Europe  who  thought  as  they  plowed,  went  far 
toward  roughing  out  the  doctrine  in  regard  to 
railroad  control  which  the  country  has  since 
adopted.  At  that  time  there  was  no  settled 
policy,  no  established  laws,  but  their  reasoning 
was  as  direct  and  simple  as  their  lives.  It  was 
plain  to  them  that  the  railroad  was  only  another 
form  of  highway.  They  knew  that  for  the 
purposes  of  a  highway,  the  public  could  enter 
upon  and  take  a  part  of  their  farms.  If,  then, 
the  right  of  passage  through  the  country  came 


BOYHOOD   PICTURE   OF   LA   FOLLETTE 

Taken  at  nine  years  of  age,  while  he  was  attending  district  school  at 
Argyle, Wisconsin,  a  country  town  forty  miles  south  of  Madison. 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  19 

from  the  people,  the  people  should  after 
ward  have  the  right  to  control  the  use  of  the 
highway.  It  was  this  simple  reasoning  which  was 
subsequently  adopted  by  legislatures  and  courts. 

As  a  boy  on  the  farm  in  Primrose  Township 
I  heard  and  felt  this  movement  of  the  Grangers 
swirling  about  me;  and  I  felt  the  indignation 
which  it  expressed  in  such  a  way  that  I  suppose 
I  have  never  fully  lost  the  effect  of  that  early 
impression.  It  was  a  time,  indeed,  of  a  good 
deal  -of  intellectual  activity  and  awakening. 
Minds  long  fixed  upon  the  slavery  question  were 
turning  to  new  affairs;  newspapers  grew  more 
numerous  and  books  were  cheaper.  I  remember 
when  I  was  a  boy  a  dog-eared  copy  of  one  of 
Henry  George's  early  books  got  into  our  neigh 
borhood.  It  was  owned  by  a  blacksmith,  named 
Dixon,  a  somewhat  unusual  man  —  a  big  power 
ful  fellow,  who  was  a  good  deal  of  a  reader  and 
thinker.  He  had  taken  an  interest  in  me  and  he 
urged  me  to  read  Henry  George's  book.  I  knew 
nothing  of  public  questions,  but  I  read  the  book. 

In  Wisconsin  the  Granger  movement  went 
so  far  as  to  cause  a  political  revolution  and  the 


20  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

^s. ' 

election  in  1874  of  a  Democratic  governor.  A 
just  and  comprehensive  law  for  regulating  the 
railroads  was  passed  and  a  strong  railroad 
commission  was  instituted.  It  was  then,  in 
deed,  that  the  railroads  began  to  dominate 
politics  for  the  first  time  in  this  country.  They 
saw  that  they  must  either  accept  control  by 
the  state  or  contr^PtEVsta^T^TTie^  adopted 
the  latter  course;  they  began  right  there  to 
corrupt  Wisconsin  —  indeed  to  corrupt  all  the 
states  of  the  Middle  West.  And  as  usual  they 
were  served  by  the  cleverest  lawyers  and  writers 

x 

that  money  could  hire.  They  asserted  that 
the  panic  of  1873  was  caused  by  the  Granger 
agitation  and  that  capital  was  being  driven 
from  the  state  by  popular  clamor.  To  these 
arguments  they  added  open  threats  and  defiance 
of  the  law.  On  April  28,  1874,  Alexander 
Mitchell,  President  of  the  Chicago,  Milwaukee 
and  St.  Paul  Railroad  Company,  wrote  a  letter 
to  Governor  Taylor  in  which  he  asserted  directly 
that  his  company  would  disregard  the  state  law. 
These  are  his  words : 

"Being  fully  conscious  that  the  enforcement 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

of  this  law  will  ruin  the  property  of  the  company 
and  feeling  assured  of  the  correctness  of  the 
opinions  of  the  eminent  counsel  who  have  ex 
amined  the  question,  the  directors  feel  compelled 
to  disregard  the  provisions  of  the  law  so  far  as  it 
fixes  a  tariff  of  rates  for  the  company  until  the 
courts  have  finally  passed  upon  the  question  of 
its  validity." 

A  more  brazen  defiance  of  law  could  scarcely 
be  conceived.  The  railroads  looked  to  the 
courts  for  final  protection,  but  the  law  which 
they  thus  defied  was  not  only  sustained  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Wisconsin,  but  by  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States. 

But  the  railroads  did  not  intend  to  submit  to 
control,  courts  or  no  courts,  and  by  fallacious 
argument,  by  threats,  by  bribery,  by  political 
manipulation,  they  were  able  to  force  the  legis 
lature  to  repeal  the  law  which  the  Supreme 
Court  had  sustained.  _JBy  that  assault  upon  free 
government  in  Wisconsin  and  in  other  middle 
western  states  the  reasonable  control  of  cor 
porations  was  delayed  in  this  country  for  many 
years. 


22  /  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

-'  From  that  moment  in  the  seventies  —  ex 
cepting  once,  and  then  only  for  a  period  of 
two  years  when  the  agricultural  and  dairy 
interests  defeated  the  corporations,  and  elected 
William  D.  Hoard  governor  —  until  my  fight 
was  finally  successful,  Wisconsin  was  a  cor 
rupted  state,  governed  not  by  the  people  but 
by  a  group  of  private  and  corporate  interests. 
They  secured  control  of  the  old  Republican 
party  organization  —  the  party  with  the  splen 
did  history  —  and  while  its  orators  outwardly 
dwelt  upon  the  glories  of  the  past  and  inspired 
the  people  with  the  fervor  of  patriotic  loyalty, 
these  corporation  interests  were  bribing,  boss- 
ing  and  thieving  within.  The  machine  organi 
zation  of  the  Democratic  party  was  as  sub 
servient  to  the  railroads  and  other  corporations 
as  the  Republican  machine,  and  mastery  of 
legislation  was  thus  rendered  complete  through 
all  these  years. 

I  never  shall  forget  the  speech  I  heard  the 
old  Chief  Justice  of  Wisconsin,  Edward  G. 
Ryan,  make  to  the  graduating  class  at  Madison 
in  June  1873,  just  before  I  entered  the  uni- 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  23 

versity.  He  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
men  who  ever  served  at  the  Wisconsin  bar  or 
filled  a  judicial  chair :  an  Irishman  by  birth  with 
a  fine  legal  education.  Of  an  erratic,  impulsive 
and  passionate  temperament,  in  his  decisions 
he  was  as  cold  and  judicial  as  any  judge  who 
ever  sat  on  the  Bench.  It  was  he  who  had  writ 
ten  the  epoch-making  decision  sustaining  the 
Granger  law  which  in  no  small  measure  laid  the 
foundation  for  judicial  action  in  this  country 
upon  the  control  of  corporations.  I  remember 
his  bowed  figure,  his  fine,  almost  feminine  fea 
tures,  his  wavy  auburn  hair,  and  the  luminous 
impressive  eyes  which  glowed  as  the  old  man 
talked  there  in  the  Assembly  Chamber  to  the 
graduating  students.  His  voice  shook  with 
emotion  and  his  prophetic  words,  which  I  have 
never  forgotten,  conveyed  powerfully  the  feel 
ing  of  many  thoughtful  men  of  that  time.  I 
have  used  them  in  scores  of  speeches  in  my  cam 
paigns.  Said  he: 

"There  is  looming  up  a  new  and  dark  power. 
I  cannot  dwell  upon  the  signs  and  shocking 
omens  of  its  advent.  The  accumulation  of 


24  V  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

^-X 

individual  wealth  seems  to  be  greater  than  it 

ever  has  been  since  the  downfall  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  The  enterprises  of  the  country  are 
aggregating  vast  corporate  combinations  of 
unexampled  capital,  boldly  marching,  not  for 
economic  conquests  only,  but  for  political 
power.  For  the  first  time  really  in  our  politics 
money  is  taking  the  field  as  an  organized  power. 
.  .  .  Already,  here  at  home,  one  great  cor 
poration  has  trifled  with  the  sovereign  power, 
and  insulted  the  state.  There  is  grave  fear 
that  it,  and  its  great  rival,  have  confederated 
to  make  partition  of  the  state  and  share  it  as 
spoils.  .  .  .  The  question  will  arise,  and 
arise  in  your  day,  though  perhaps  not  fully 
in  mine,  'Which  shall  rule  —  wealth  or  man; 
which  shall  lead  —  money  or  intellect;  who  shall 
fill  public  stations  —  educated  and  patriotic 
free  men,  or  the  feudal  serfs  of  corporate  capi 
tal?'" 

It  was  this  power,  though  I  did  not  know  it 
then,  nor  indeed  fully  until  years  later,  that 
spoke  through  the  voice  of  Boss  Keyes  when 
he  attempted  to  deny  my  right  to  appear  before 


I/ 

POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 


the  people  of  Dane  County  as  a  candidate  for 
district  attorney.  It  was  this  power  which 
held  together  and  directed  the  county  machine, 
the  state  machine,  the  national  machine,  of  both 
the  old  parties.  Of  course,  the  Boss  and  the 
machine  had  nothing  against  me  personally. 
All  it  wanted  was  the  acceptance  of  its  authority 
and  leadership:  what  it  feared  and  hated  was 
independence  and  freedom.  I  could  have  made 
terms  with  Keyes  and  with  the  state  bosses  of 
Wisconsin  at  any  time  during  my  years  of  strug 
gle  with  them  and  secured  personal  advance 
ment  with  ease  and  profit  to  myself,  but  I  would 
have  had  to  surrender  the  principles  and  aban 
don  the  issues  for  which  I  was  contending,  and 
this  I  would  not  do. 

In  refusing  to  acknowledge  the  authority  of 
Boss  Keyes  at  the  outset  I  was  merely  express- 
ing  a  common  and  widespread,  though  largely 
unconscious,  spirit  of  revolt  among  the  people 
—  a  movement  of  the  new  generation  toward 
more  democracy  in  human  relationships  No 
one  had  thought  it  out  in  sharply  defined  terms, 
but  nearly  every  one  felt  it.  It  grew  out  of  the 


26  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

intellectual  awakening  of  which  I  have  already 
spoken,  the  very  centre  and  inspirational  point 
of  which  in  Wisconsin  was  then,  and  has  been 
ever  since,  the  university  at  Madison. 

It  is  difficult,  indeed,  to  overestimate  the  part 

played  in   the  Wis 


consin  revolution.  For  myself,  I  owe  what  I  am 
and  what  I  have  done  largely  to  the  inspira 
tion  I  received  while  there.  It  was  not  so  much 
the  actual  courses  of  study  which  I  pursued;  it 
was  rather  the  spirit  of  the  institution  —  a  high 
spirit  of  earnest  endeavor,  a  spirit  of  fresh  in 
terest  in  new  things,  and  beyond  all  else  a  sense 
that  somehow  the  state  and  the  university  were 
intimately  related,  and  that  they  should  be  of 
mutual  service. 

The  guiding  spirit  of  my  time,  and  the  man 
to  whom  Wisconsin  owes  a  debt  greater  than  it 
can  ever  pay,  was  its  President,  John  Bascom. 

I  never  saw  Ralph  Wraldo  Emerson,  but  I 
should  say  that  John  Bascom  was  a  man  of  much 
his  type,  both  in  appearance  and  in  character. 
He  was  the  embodiment  of  moral  force  and 
moral  enthusiasm  ;  and  he  was  in  advance  of  his_ 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  27 

time  in  feeling  the  new  social  forces  and  in 
emphasizing  the  new  social  responsibilities. 
His  addresses  to  the  students  on  Sunday  after 
noons,  together  with  his  work  in  the  classroom, 
were  among  the  most  important  influences  in 
my  early  life.  It  was  his  teaching,  iterated  and 
reiterated,  of  the  obligation  of  both  the  uni 
versity  and  the  students  to  the  mother  state 
that  may  be  said  to  have  originated  the  Wiscon 
sin  idea  in  education.  He  was  forever  telling 
us  what  the  state  was  doing  for  us  and  urging 
our  return  obligation  not  to  use  our  education 
wholly  for  our  own  selfish  benefit,  but  to  re 
turn  some  service  to  the  state.  That  teaching 
animated  and  inspired  hundreds  of  students  who 
sat  under  John  Bascom.  The  present  Presi 
dent  of  the  university,  Charles  R.  Van  Hise, 
a  classmate  of  mine,  was  one  of  the  men  who 
has  nobly  handed  down  the  tradition  and  con 
tinued  the  teaching  of  John  Bascom. 

In  those  days  we  did  not  so  much  get  correct 
political  and  economic  views,  for  there  was  then 
little  teaching  of  sociology  or  political  economy 
worthy  the  name,  but  what  we  somehow  did 


28  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

get,  and  largely  from  Bascom,  was  a  proper  atti- 
tude  toward  public  affairs.  And  when  all  is  said, 
this  attitude  is  more  important  than  any  definite 
views  a  man  may  hold.  Years  afterward,  when 
I  was  Governor  of  Wisconsin,  John  Bascom  came 
to  visit  us  at  the  executive  residence  in  Madison, 
and  I  treasure  the  words  he  said  to  me  about 
my  new  work: 

"Robert,"  he  said,  "you  will  doubtless  make 
mistakes  of  judgment  as  governor,  but  never 
mind  the  political  mistakes  so  long  as  you  make 
no  ethical  mistakes." 

John  Bascom  lived  to  be  eighty -four  years 
old,  dying  last  fall,  1911,  at  his  home  at  Williams- 
town,  Massachusetts.  Up  to  the  last  his  mind 
was  clear  and  his  interest  in  the  progress  of 
humanity  as  keen  as  ever.  In  his  later  years 
he  divided  his  time  between  his  garden  and  his 
books  —  a  serene  and  beautiful  old  age.  His 
occasional  letters  and  his  writings  were  always 
a  source  of  inspiration  to  me. 

In  all  my  fights  in  Wisconsin,  the  university 
and  the  students  have  always  stood  firmly  be 
hind  me.  In  a  high  sense  the  university  has 


PRESIDENT    JOHN   BASCOM 

1  John  Bascom's  addresses,  with  his  work  in  the  classroom,  were  among 
the  most  important  influences  in  my  early  life." 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  29 

been  the  repository  of  progressive  ideas:  it  has 
always  enjoyed  both  free  thought  and  free 
speech.  When  the  test  came  years  ago  the 
university  met  it  boldly  where  some  other 
institutions  faltered  or  failed.  The  declaration 
of  freedom  was  made  by  the  Board  of  Regents 
in  1894  when  Dr.  Richard  T.  Ely  was  tried  for 
economic  heresy : 

"We  cannot  for  a  moment  believe  that  knowl 
edge  has  reached  its  final  goal  or  that  the  present 
constitution  of  society  is  perfect.  ...  In 
all  lines  of  investigation  .  .  ;  ;  the  investi 
gator  should  be  absolutely  free  to  follow  the 
paths  of  truth  wherever  they  may  lead.  What 
ever  may  be  the  limitations  which  trammel 
inquiry  elsewhere,  we  believe  the  great  State  of 
Wisconsin  should  ever  encourage  that  continual 
and  fearless  sifting  and  winnowing  by  which 
alone  the  truth  can  be  found." 

This  declaration  of  freedom  was  framed  by 
Herbert  W.  Chynoweth,  then  a  member  of  the 
board,  now  deceased,  and  it  was  incorporated 
as  a  plank  in  the  last  Republican  state  platform 
as  a  pledge  of  the  party  to  sustain  the  academic 


30  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

freedom  of  the  university.  It  has  also  been 
inscribed  on  a  monument  erected  by  a  recent 
graduating  class. 

In  no  state  of  the  Union  are  the  relationships 
between  the  university  and  the  people  of  the 
state  so  intimate  and  so  mutually  helpful  as  in 
Wisconsin.  We  believe  there  that  the  purpose 
'of  the  university  is  to  serve  the  people,  and 
every  effort  is  made  through  correspondence 
courses,  special  courses,  housekeepers'  confer 
ences,  farmers'  institutes,  experimental  stations 
and  the  like  to  bring  every  resident  of  the  state 
under  the  broadening  and  inspiring  influence  of  a 
faculty  of  trained  men.  At  the  same  time  the 
highest  standards  of  education  in  the  arts  and 
in  the  professions  are  maintained  in  the  uni 
versity  itself. 

In  other  ways  the  influence  of  the  university 
has  been  profound.  While  I  was  governor,  I 
sought  the  constant  advice  and  service  of  the 
trained  men  of  the  institution  in  meeting  the 
difficult  problems  which  confronted  the  state. 
Many  times  when  harassed  by  the  conditions 
which  confronted  me,  I  have  called  in  for  con- 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  31 

ference  President  Van  Hise,  Dr.  Ely,  Professor 
Commons,  Dr.  Reinsch  and  others. 

During  my  terms  as  governor  I  did  my  best 
to  build  up  and  encourage  the  spirit  which  John 
Bascom  in  his  time  had  expressed,  by  the  appoint 
ment  of  strong  trustees  —  the  sort  of  men  who 
would  understand  what  the  university  should 
do  and  be.  When  I  became  governor  the  uni 
versity  graduates  were  not  numerically  strong 
on  the  Board  of  Regents;  when  I  resigned,  the 
alumni  had  at  least  their  full  representation, 
and  I  had  also  strengthened  the  board  by  the 
appointment  of  a  woman  member  —  the  first 
ever  appointed  in  Wisconsin. 

I  made  it  a  further  policy,  in  order  to  bring 
all  the  reserves  of  knowledge  and  inspiration  of 
the  university  more  fully  to  the  service  of  the 
people,  to  appoint  experts  from  the  university 
wherever  possiWe  upon  the  important  boards 
of  the  state  —  the  civil  service  commission,  the 
railroad  commission  and  so  on  —  a  relationship 
which  the  university  has  always  encouraged  and 
by  which  the  state  has  greatly  profited.  Many 
of  the  university  staff  are  now  in  state  service, 


h  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

and  a  bureau  of  investigation  and  research  estab 
lished  as  a  legislative  reference  library  conducted 
by  Charles  McCarthy,  a  man  of  marked  origi 
nality  and  power,  has  proved  of  the  greatest  assist 
ance  to  the  legislature  in  furnishing  the  latest  and 
best  thought  of  the  advanced  students  of  gov 
ernment  in  this  and  other  countries.  He  has 
built  up  an  institution  in  Wisconsin  that  is  a 
model  which  the  Federal  Government  and  ulti 
mately  every  state  in  the  Union  will  follow.,/, 

During  the  last  session  of  the  legislature  a 
Saturday  lunch  club  was  organized,  at  which 
the  governor,  and  some  of  the  state  officers  and 
legislators  regularly  meet  the  university  pro 
fessors  —  Van  Hise,  Ross,  Reinsch,  Commons, 
Ely,  Scott,  Meyer,  McCarthy  and  others  —  to 
discuss  the  problems  of  the  state.  Such  meet- 
"•  ings  as  these  are  a  tremendous  force  in  bringing 
about  intelligent  democratic  government:  they 
are  very  different  from  the  old-time  secret, 
back-room  conferences  of  bosses  which  once 
controlled  Wisconsin  in  the  interest  of  private 
corporations.  It  is  not,  indeed,  surprising  that 
Dr.  Eliot  of  Harvard,  after  an  examination  of 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  33 

the  work  done  at  Madison  should  have  called 
Wisconsin  "the  leading  State  University,"  for 
in  every  possible  way  it  has  endeavored  to  make 
itself  a  great  democratic  institution  —  a  place 
of  free  thought,  free  investigation,  free  speech, 
and  of  constant  and  unremitting  service  to  the 
people  who  give  it  life 

I  have  endeavored  thus  to  exhibit  some  of  the 
underlying  causes  of  the  progressive  spirit  in- 
Wisconsin,  and  I  cannot  leave  the  subject  with 
out  speaking  of  one  other  influence  which  im 
pressed  me. 

In  the  campaign  of  1876,  Robert  G.  IngergoJL 

—  •  —     .  '   "*' 

came  to  Madison  to  speak.  I  had  heard  of  him 
for  years;  when  I  was  a  boy  on  the  farm  a 
relative  of  ours  had  testified  in  a  case  in  which 
Ingersoll  had  appeared  as  an  attorney  and  he 
had  told  the  glowing  stories  of  the  plea  that 
Ingersoll  had  made.  Then,  in  the  spring  of 
1876,  Ingersoll  delivered  the  Memorial  Day  ad 
dress  at  Indianapolis.  It  was  widely  published 
shortly  after  it  was  delivered  and  it  startled 
and  enthralled  the  whole  country.  I  remember 
that  it  was  printed  on  a  poster  as  large  as  a  door 


34  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

and  hung  in  the  post-office  at  Madison.  I  can 
scarcely  convey  now,  or  even  understand,  the 
emotional  effect  the  reading  of  it  produced  upon 
me.  Oblivious  of  my  surroundings,  I  read  it 
with  tears  streaming  down  my  face.  It  began, 
I  remember: 

"  The  past  rises  before  me  like  a  dream.  Again 
we  are  in  the  great  struggle  for  national  life. 
We  hear  the  sounds  of  preparation  —  the  music  of 
boisterous  drums  —  the  silver  voices  of  heroic 
bugles.  We  see  the  pale  cheeks  of  women  and 
the  flushed  faces  of  men;  and  in  those  assem 
blages  we  see  all  the  dead  whose  dust  we  have 
covered  with  flowers." 

I  was  fairly  entranced.  He  pictured  the 
recruiting  of  the  troops,  the  husbands  and  fathers 
with  their  families  on  the  last  evening,  the  lover 
under  the  trees  and  the  stars;  then  the  beat  of 
drums,  the  waving  flags,  the  marching  away; 
the  wife  at  the  turn  of  the  lane  holds  her  baby 
aloft  in  her  arms  —  a  wave  of  the  hand  and  he 
has  gone;  then  you  see  him  again  in  the  heat  of 
the  charge.  It  was  wonderful  how  it  seized 
upon  my  youthful  imagination. 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  35 

When  he  came  to  Madison  I  crowded  myself 
into  the  assembly  chamber  to  hear  him :  I  would 
not  have  missed  it  for  every  wordly  thing  I 
possessed.  And  he  did  not  disappoint  me. 

A  large  handsome  man  of  perfect  build,  with  a 
face  as  round  as  a  child's  and  a  compelling  smile 
—  all  the  arts  of  the  old-time  oratory  were  his 
in  high  degree.  He  was  witty,  he  was  droll, 
he  was  eloquent:  he  was  as  full  of  sentiment  as 
an  old  violin.  Often,  while  speaking,  he  would 
pause,  break  into  a  smile,  and  the  audience,  in 
anticipation  of  what  was  to  come,  would  follow 
him  in  irresistible  peals  of  laughter.  I  cannot 
remember  much  that  he  said,  but  the  impression 
he  made  upon  me  was  indelible. 

After  that  I  got'Ingersoll's  books  and  never 
afterward  lost  an  opportunity  to  hear  him  speak. 
He  was  the  greatest  orator,  I  think,  that  I 
ever  heard;  and  the  greatest  of  his  lectures,  I 
have  always  thought,  was  the  one  on  Shake 
speare. 

Ingersoll  had  a  tremendous  influence  upon  me, 
as  indeed  he  had  upon  many  young  men  of  that 
time.  It  was  not  that  he  changed  my  beliefs, 


36  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

but  that  lie  liberated  my  mind.  Freedom  was 
what  he  preached:  he  wanted  the  shackles  off 
everywhere.  He  wanted  men  to  think  boldly 
about  all  things:  he  demanded  intellectual 
and  moral  courage.  He  wanted  men  to  follow 
wherever  truth  might  lead  them.  He  was  a 
rare,  bold,  heroic  figure. 

I  have  departed  somewhat  from  my  direct 
narrative,  but  it  has  seemed  necessary  to  show 
some  of  the  conditions  and  influences  which  have 
resulted  in  the  spread  of  the  Progressive  move 
ment  in  Wisconsin  and  elsewhere. 

I  was  sworn  in  as  district  attorney  of  Dane 
County  in  January,  1881 .  I  was  not  yet  twenty- 
six,  and,  besides  the  defense  of  a  tramp  charged 
with  assault  with  intent  to  'kill,  a  few  collection 
cases,  and  two  civil  cases  in  the  circuit  court, 
I  had  had  little  actual  trial  experience.  I  never 
worked  harder  in  my  life  than  I  did  during  the 
next  two  years:  I  worked  almost  day  and 
night.  I  liked  it,  it  suited  my  talents,  and  from 
the  first  I  was  successful  with  most  of  my  cases. 
I  kept  my  word  to  the  farmers  literally :  although 
I  often  had  to  meet  the  foremost  lawyers  in 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  37 

southern  Wisconsin  —  men  like  William  F. 
Vilas  —  no  legal  assistance  was  ever  employed 
in  my  office  or  to  aid  in  the  trial  of  a  case  while 
I  was  district  attorney.  I  did  all  the  work 
alone.  At  the  end  of  two  years'  service,  so  well 
satisfied  were  the  people  with  my  administration 
that  the  Boss  did  not  even  oppose  my  renomina- 
tion  and  I  was  the  only  man  on  the  Republican 
county  ticket  who  was  reflected.  I  ran  over 
£,000  votes  ahead  of  my  ticket. 

During  my  service  as  district  attorney  I  began 
to  see  some  further  aspects  of  boss  rule  and  mis- 
representative  government,  although  I  had  little 
idea  then  what  it  all  meant.  It  was  a  common 
practice  for  men  caught  in  the  criminal  net,  or 
the  friends  of  those  men,  not  to  go  forward 
honestly  and  try  their  cases  in  the  public  tri 
bunal,  but  repair  to  the  boss  and  thus  bring 
.underhanded  and  secret  influence  to  bear  in 
blocking  the  wheels  of  justice.  And  why 
shouldn't  they?  The  influence  of  the  boss  was 
all-powerful  in  the  election  or  appointment  of 
sheriffs,  police,  constables,  usually  the  district 
attorney,  and  even  judges.  With  their  official 


38  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

life  in  some  measure  dependent  upon  the  Boss, 
a  mere  nod  or  a  request  might  easily  change  the 
whole  course  of  justice;  and  there  are  few  crim 
inals  who  cannot  muster  some  influence  with  a 
boss,  whose  secret  of  power  lies  in  the  personal 
loyalty  of  those  upon  whom  he  has  conferred 
special  benefits. 

I  began  to  feel  this  pressure  in  all  sorts  of 
cases :  they  did  not  attempt  to  reach  me  directly, 
knowing  that  I  had  defied  the  Boss  in  my  elec 
tion,  but  it  came  about  in  the  curious  ways  in 
which  witnesses  faded  out  of  the  reach  of  the 
sheriff's  office,  in  the  disagreement  of  juries,  and 
the  like.  I  remember  one  case  of  adultery  in 
which  the  parties  brought  powerful  influence  to 
bear,  defeating  my  attempts  at  prosecution, 
Finally  I  was  taken  sick  and  had  to  go  to  bed. 
Keyes  seized  eagerly  upon  the  opportunity  and 
used  his  influence  to  compel  the  dismissal  of  the 
case  against  the  defendant.  I  heard  of  it,  and, 
although  too  weak  to  walk,  I  had  myself  rolled 
in  a  blanket  and  driven  to  the  courthouse.  I 
entered  my  appearance  and  asserted  my  official 
authority  against  having  the  case  dismissed. 


V 

POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  39 

There  was  a  good  deal  of  a  fight,  I  remember, 
and  I  was  threatened  with  being  sent  to  jail  for 
contempt.  But  I  finally  secured  a  postponement 
and  afterward  convicted  my  man. 

Under  such  conditions,  it  may  well  be  imag 
ined,  any  man  inside  the  political  ring,  or  a  man 
with  great  political  influence,  could  escape  pun 
ishment  for  almost  any  offense  except,  perhaps, 
a  capital  crime.  I  early  determined  that  I 
would  make  absolutely  no  distinctions  between 
men  in  the  administration  of  justice,  and  I  soon 
had  a  very  severe  test,  in  which  I  had  to  meet 
the  influence  of  the  system  which  then  prevailed. 
Sanderson,  chairman  of  the  Republican  State 
Central  Committee,  came  to  Madison  at  the 
organization  of  the  legislature,  got  to  gambling 
and  drinking  and  went  to  bed  in  a  state  of 
intoxication.  Feeling  some  one  trying  to  take 
his  money,  he  aroused  himself  enough  to  make 
an  outcry,  and  the  next  morning  the  story  was 
all  over  town.  It  came  up  to  me  and  in  the 
regular  course  of  my  duty  I  went  to  the  hotel 
to  get  Sanderson  to  make  a  complaint.  He  was 
insulting;  told  me  it  was  none  of  my  business, 


40  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

and  that  if  I  knew  where  my  political  interests 

lay,  I  better  keep   d quiet.     I  told  him 

plainly  that  we  did  not  permit  such  things  to 
happen  in  Madison  without  prosecution  and 
that  I  should  require  him  to  swear  out  a  warrant. 
As  soon  as  I  left  he  set  the  wheels  to  moving, 
and  before  I  could  get  the  papers  made  out  a 
number  of  friends  came  to  me  advising  me  that 
it  would  defeat  me  for  reelection  if  I  made 
trouble  for  so  important  a  person.  Sanderson 
got  out  of  Madison  by  the  first  train  and  tried 
to  get  out  of  the  state,  but  I  caught  him  with  a 
subpoena  at  Milwaukee.  I  also  got  the  fellow 
who  was  charged  with  taking  the  money;  but 
the  pressure  on  the  witnesses  was  so  great  that  I 
could  not  convict  him.  \  However,  the  purpose 
of  the  prosecution  —  to  make  the  law  supreme 
in  Dane  County  --  was  well  served;  and  instead 
of  injuring  my  chances  for  reelection,  the  case 
decidedly  helped  me. 

I  do  not  think,  as  I  look  back  on  my  record 
as  district  attorney,  that  I  should  make  as 
good  a  prosecutor  now  as  I  was  then.-^I  saw 
just  two  things  then:  the  law  and  the  individual 


5W 


ROBERT    M.    LA    FOLLETTE 

At  the  time  of  his  graduation  from  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  41 

criminal.  I  believe  I  broke  the  record  for  con 
victions  in  Dane  County.  I  worked  the  sheriff 
half  to  death.  If  there  was  evidence  anywhere 
to  be  obtained  in  my  cases  I  got  it,  regardless 
of  work  or  expense.  I  even  sent  one  sheriff  to  ^ 
England.  Since  then  I  have  come  to  have  a 
little  different,  point  of  view  regarding  crime.  I 
see  that  the  individual  criminal  is  not  always 
wholly  to  blame;  that  many  crimes  grow  directly 
out  of  the  sins  and  injustices  of  society. 

During  the  four  years  I  served  as  district  L 
attorney  I  had  practically  nothing  to  do  with 
politics;  I  made  as  good  a  campaign  as  I  knew 
how  for  reelection,  but  I  knew  nothing  and 
cared  nothing  for  the  political  organizations 
of  the  county  and  state.  I  put  my  whole  force 
into  my  work  as  district  attorney  and  thought 
of  nothing  else.  It  was  a  keen  joy  to  prepare 
the  cases  and  present  them  in  perfect  order 
before  the  court.  When  it  became  known  that 
a  crime  had  been  committed  I  tried  always  to  be 
first  on  the  ground  myself,  interview  all  the 
witnesses  and  see  all  the  surroundings  in  person. 
It  is  facts  that  settle  cases;  the  law  is  always  the 


42  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

same.  And  this  rule  applies  to  things  of  larger 
importance  than  criminal  cases.  Facts  count 
high  everywhere.  Whether  the  matter  in  hand 
is  railroad  legislation  or  the  tariff,  it  is  always 
a  question  of  digging  out  the  facts  upon  which 
to  base  your  case.  In  no  other  one  thing  does 
a  public  man  more  surely  indicate  his  quality 
than  in  his  ability  to  master  actual  conditions 
and  set  them  forth  with  clearness.  Neither 
laws,  nor  opinions,  nor  even  constitutions,  will 
finally  convince  people:  it  is  only  the  concrete 
facts  of  concrete  cases. 

The  first  and  rather  surprising  suggestion 
made  to  me  to  become  a  candidate  for  Congress 
came  about  in  this  way. 

Samuel  A.  Harper  and  I  were  classmates  and 
chums  in  the  university.  Some  time  in  his 
sophomore  year,  while  wrestling,  he  injured  his 
knee  so  severely  that  he  had  to  leave  the  uni 
versity.  He  taught  school  for  a  time,  then 
studied  law,  and  in  1884,  while  I  was  finishing 
my  last  year's  service  as  district  attorney,  he 
came  to  visit  me  in  Madison.  He  was  full  of 
imagination  and  the  spirit  of  youth;  six  feet 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  43 

tall,  lithe  and  athletic;  eyes  bright  and  black; 
ha^ir  in  ringlets.  He  was  a  handsome  and  bril 
liant  fellow  —  a  charmer  of  men.  He  possessed 
the  most  unerring  political  judgment  of  any  one 
I  have  ever  known.  Dear  fellow!  Our  lives 
were  knit  together  in  a  way  that  rarely  comes  to 
men.  He  became  my  law  partner  in  1886,  and 
was  my  closest  friend  and  most  trusted  adviser 
until  his  death  in  1898. 

Sam  remained  with  me  for  several  weeks  and 
we  talked  as  such  friends  will.  One  night  he 
said: 

"Bob,  why  don't  you  go  to  Congress?  You 
can  go  to  Congress  just  as  well  as  not.  You 
have  the  opportunity  of  a  public  career,  and 
you  have  the  stuff  in  you." 

With  inimitable  spirit  he  developed  his  plan: 

"There  are  five  counties  in  this  district,"  he 
said.  "The  two  big  counties,  Dane  and  Grant, 
outnumber  all  the  others  in  voting  population. 
Now  I  live  in  Grant  and  you  live  in  Dane.  I'll 
carry  Grant  for  you  and  you  carry  Dane  for 
yourself.  They  will  control  the  convention  - 
and  you  go  to  Congress." 


44  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

Well,  we  talked  it  over.  It  got  into  my  head. 
It  seemed  feasible.  Neither  Sam  nor  I  ever 
thought  of  going  to  the  Boss;  indeed,  I  do  not 
think  we  consulted  any  one  but  ourselves  until 
after  I  decided  to  run. 

The  situation  was  favorable.  In  the  previous 
Congressional  convention,  Geo.  C.  Hazelton 
who  had  served  the  district  three  terms,  was  a 
candidate  for  renomination.  Boss  Keyes,  who 
was  also  a  candidate,  withdrew  from  the  con 
vention  and  was  nominated  by  his  followers  in 
a  separate  convention.  This  three-cornered 
fight  resulted  in  the  election  of  the  Democratic 
candidate,  Burr  Jones,  of  Madison,  and  left 
much  bitterness  among  the  Republicans  of  the 
district.  Keyes's  enmity  toward  me  naturally 
made  the  Hazelton  supporters  friendly  to  me. 
It  was  also  important  to  have  a  candidate  from 
Dane  County,  as  Jones  had  made  a  good  record 
and  was  likely  to  run  ahead  of  his  ticket. 

Sam  and  I  started  out  on  the  campaign  as 
though  it  were  some  fine  game,  and  with  great 
enjoyment  of  the  prospect.  By  this  time  I  was 
thoroughly  well  acquainted  in  Dane  County. 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  45 

Besides  my  service  as  district  attorney  I  had 
built  up  such  a  good  civil-law  practice  that  in 
the  year  1885  I  had  more  civil  cases  on  the 
calendar  than  any  other  lawyer  in  Madison. 
All  this  served  to  give  me  an  assured  place  with 
the  people.  Well,  I  conducted  my  canvass 
among  the  farmers  very  much  as  I  had  gone 
about  it  four  years  before.  It  was  the  general 
feeling,  I  knew,  that  I  had  made  good  as  district 
attorney  and  I  argued  that  I  could  and  would 
serve  the  people  just  as  faithfully  as  Congress 
man.  I  found  I  had  many  friends  among 
Democrats  as  well  as  among  Republicans. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  machine  found 
out  what  I  was  doing.  The  so-called  "  Madison 
ring,"  which  controlled  that  Congressional  dis 
trict,  was  composed  of  Keyes,  Phil  Spooner,  a 
brother  of  John  C.  Spooner,  Oakley,  United 
States  Marshal,  and  Willet  Main,  a  brother-in- 
law  of  John  C.  Spooner,  who  was  deputy-mar 
shal.  As  I  was  on  my  way  home  one  day,  Phil 
Spooner  stopped  me  and  said: 

"What  is  this  I  hear  about  your  running  for 
Congress?" 


46  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

I  told  him  my  purpose. 

"Do  you  expect  to  be  nominated?" 

I  told  him  I  did. 

"Don't  you  know,"  he  said,  "that  there  hasn't 
been  a  Congressman  nominated  for  fifteen  years 
who  hasn't  had  our  support?  Why  haven't 
you  consulted  Keyes  and  Oakley  and  me?" 

I  said:  "I  know  of  no  reason  why  I  should 
consult  you.  I've  been  out  in  the  country  con 
sulting  the  people,  and  I'm  going  to  consult  a 
good  many  more." 

"Well,  young  man,"  he  said,  "you  can't  go 
to  Congress." 

I  said:  "I  think  I  can;  anyhow  I'm  going  to 
try." 

They  gave  me  a  hard  fight.  They  hired  most 
of  the  teams  in  Madison  and  covered  the  country 
districts.  There  was  no  influence  they  did  not 
use;  no  wires  they  did  not  pull.  But  I  carried 
the  caucuses  against  them  and  elected  my 
delegates.  The  very  night  that  I  got  the  final 
returns  from  Dane  County  I  received  a  telegram 
from  Sam  Harper  saying  that  he  had  carried 
the  last  caucuses  that  settled  Grant.  That  meant 


GENERAL  GEORGE  E.  BRYANT 

'A  gallant  soldier,  who  had  commanded  a  Wisconsin  regiment  in  the 

war.       .     He  was  long  an  intimate  friend  of  General  Grant.     .     . 

A  wise  man,  a  good  lawyer  and  judge." 


POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS  47 

that  I  had  won.      Sam  had  not  been  out  of  his 
buggy  for  thirty  days. 

We  never  went  into  the  other    counties    in 
the  district  at  all,  although  the  university  men, 
who  were  then,  as  always,  my  warm  supporters,' 
did  what  they  could  for  me  there. 

I  cannot  refrain  here  from  speaking  of  another 
individual  influence  which  was  helpful  to  me  in 
my  campaign.  Among  the  notable  men  of 
southern  Wisconsin  was  General  George  E. 
Bryant,  a  gallant  soldier  who  had  commanded  a 
Wisconsin  regiment  in  the  war  and  who  had 
been  probate  judge  of  Dane  County.  He  was 
long  an  intimate  friend  of  General  Grant,  and 
one  of  the  306  delegates  who  stood  out  in  the 
national  convention  for  a  third  term  for  Grant 
in  the  presidency.  He  came  from  a  fine  old 
New  England  family,  and  he  was  a  wise  man,  a 
good  lawyer  and  judge.  General  Bryant  had 
been  a  Hazelton  supporter,  and  was  a  potent 
influence  in  my  behalf  among  the  old  soldiers 
who  were  then  an  important  element  in  the 
electorate.  When  I  was  elected  governor  he 
became  chairman  of  the  State  Central  Commit- 


48  POLITICAL  BEGINNINGS 

tee,  and  he  fought  with  me  through  all  my  cam 
paigns.  During  his  last  illness,  when  he  thought 
he  would  not  see  me  again,  he  addressed  this 
brief  note  to  me,  which  I  treasure  highly : 

DEAR  BOB:  Next  to  my  own  two  boys,  I  loved  you 
and  Sam  Harper  better  than  any  one  else  in  the  world. 

GEN'L. 

The  convention  wTas  held  at  Dodge ville,  and, 
although  the  old  crowd  was  there  in  force,  I  was 
nominated  on  the  first  ballot.  They  tried  to 
beat  me  at  the  polls  by  throwing  support  to  the 
Democrats  —  and  they  had  behind  them  the 
influence  of  the  railroads  —  but  I  was  elected 
by  400  votes. 

My  second  term  as  district  attorney  closed 
on  January  1,  1885.  I  continued  my  law  prac 
tice  until  Congress  met  in  the  fall  of  that  year. 
At  the  time  of  my  election  I  had  never  been 
farther  east  than  Chicago,  and  when  I  arrived 
in  Washington  I  found  myself  the  youngest 
member  of  Congress.  I  was  twenty -nine  years 
old. 


CHAPTER  II 

IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES 

HAVING  thus  been  elected  to  Congress, 
in  November,  1884,  I  began  to  realize 
keenly  how  ill-prepared  I  was  to 
meet  with  intelligence  any  important  national 
question.  My  service  as  district  attorney  dur 
ing  the  preceding  four  years  had  absorbed 
my  energies  to  the  exclusion  of  everything 
else;  in  trying  to  do  that  work  thoroughly 
well,  and  to  keep  my  promise  to  employ  no 
legal  assistance  in  the  trial  of  cases,  I  found  I 
had  little  time  to  devote  to  political  or  legisla 
tive  affairs. 

For  these  reasons  I  resolved  to  go  to  Washing 
ton  in  January,  1885.  The  49th  Congress,  to 
which  I  had  been  elected,  did  not  meet  until 
December,  but  I  hoped  that  by  attending  the 
closing  session  of  the  48th  Congress,  I  might  learn 


50  IN  THE  HOUSE 

something  of  the  great  national  questions  then 
under  consideration. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  journey  from  Madison 
to  Washington.  I  came  by  way  of  Harper's 
Ferry  and  I  saw  the  old  battlefields  and  the 
prison  where  John  Brown  had  been  confined. 
The  first  sight  of  the  Capitol  stirred  me  deeply. 
I  recall  distinctly  how  I  thought  of  Jefferson 
and  Hamilton  and  Webster  and  Clay  and  Lin 
coln,  and  I  had  visions  of  public  service  which  I 
would  hardly  dare  now  to  confess.  I  was  very 
young  then,  you  see.  Before  breakfast,  on  my 
first  morning  in  Washington,  I  went  into  Lin 
coln  Park  and  stood  with  my  hat  off  before 
Ball's  statue  of  Lincoln.  I  know  that  critics 
have  found  fault  with  it  as  a  work  of  art,  but 
I  cannot  forget  how  it  moved  me  that  first  morn 
ing  in  Washington.  There  stood  Lincoln  hold 
ing  in  one  hand  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipa 
tion,  the  other  extended  over  the  head  of  a 
kneeling  negro  from  whose  wrists  the  shackles 
had  just  parted!  That  moment  and  the  day  I 
spent  at  Mount  Vernon  were  experiences  which 
I  shall  never  forget. 


IN  THE  HOUSE  51 

I  attended  the  sessions  of  the  House  as  faith 
fully  as  though  I  were  a  member.  I  studied  the 
rules,  followed  every  debate,  read  the  Congres 
sional  Record  each  day.  When  there  was  an 
all-night  session  I  remained  all  night.  It  was 
soon  known  that  I  was  the  youngest  member  of 
the  House,  and  this  decidedly  helped  me  in 
getting  acquainted. 

Carlisle  was  then  Speaker:  he  was  a  striking 
figure.  A  near  view  of  his  face  was  disappointing; 
it  was  almost  colorless  and  his  eye  was  as  dull 
as  lead,  but,  seen  from  the  floor  of  the  House, 
his  great  slow-moving  figure  and  his  strong  head 
were  indeed  striking.  He  possessed  something 
of  the  Southern  courtesy  of  manner  and  there 
was  a  peculiar  steady  quality  of  the  voice  that 
suggested  not  only  a  reserve  of  power  but  ab 
solute  impersonality  in  the  decision  of  questions. 
I  have  never  known  his  superior  as  a  presiding 
officer. 

Many  other  notable  figures  were  then  playing 
their  parts  upon  the  national  stage.  Arthur 
was  in  the  White  House,  and  Blaine  was  still  a 
great  party  leader.  In  the  Senate,  where  I 


52  IN  THE  HOUSE 

sometimes  occupied  a  seat  in  the  gallery,  were 
Edmunds,  Hoar,  Sherman,  Evarts,  Allison  and 
Ingalls.  In  the  House,  the  leaders  were  Tom 
Reed,  McKinley,  the  brilliant  Ben  Butterworth 
and  Joe  Cannon.  Cannon  had  not  then  earned 
the  title  of  "uncle";  he  was  a  rough  and  rugged 
man  of  fifty  years  of  age,  a  hardy  off-hand  de 
bater.  On  the  Democratic  side  were  Carlisle, 
Randall,  Mills  and  Holman  of  Indiana.  Holman 
was  always  objecting  —  the  watch-dog  of  the 
treasury.  During  the  daytime  I  heard  these 
men  discussing  the  important  issues  of  the  time; 
many  of  the  nights  I  spent  in  the  Congressional 
library,  eagerly  reading  political  history.  I 
wanted  to  get  hold  of  fundamental  principles 
and  the  reasons  underlying  current  issues.  I 
also  read  many  speeches  —  Lincoln  and  Douglas, 
and  the  Elliot  debates. 

I  remained  in  Washington  until  after  the 
inauguration  of  Cleveland.  I  saw  Cleveland 
and  Arthur  sitting  side  by  side  in  the  Senate 
chamber  on  March  4th.  My  first  impression 
of  Cleveland  was  extremely  unfavorable.  The 
contrast  with  Arthur,  who  was  a  fine  handsome 


IN  THE  HOUSE  53 

figure,  was  very  striking.  Cleveland's  coarse 
face,  his  heavy,  inert  body,  his  great  shapeless 
hands,  confirmed  in  my  mind  the  attacks  made 
upon  him  during  the  campaign.  And  he  was 
a  Democrat!  —  and  I  a  Republican  at  a  time 
when  party  feeling  was  singularly  intense.  Later 
I  came  to  entertain  a  great  respect  for  Cleveland, 
to  admire  the  courage  and  conscientiousness  of 
his  character. 

In  December  I  moved  to  Washington  with 
my  family,  which  then  consisted  of  Mrs.  La 
Follette  and  our  little  girl  Tola. 

A  new  Congressman  finds  himself  at  once 
irresistibly  drawn  into  various  groups  and  align 
ments.  No  sooner  was  I  on  the  ground  than 
I  began  to  feel  the  influence  of  Senator  Philetus 
Sawyer,  then  the  leader  of  the  Republican  party 
in  Wisconsin.  Owing  to  the  fact  that  I  had 
been  elected  to  Congress  without  the  assistance 
of  the  organization  —  indeed,  in  defiance  of  it 
—  I  knew  next  to  nothing  about  the  underlying 
forces  which  at  that  time  controlled,  and  in  large 
measure  still  control,  party  machinery.  A  very 
small  coterie  of  men  then  dominated  the  politics 


54  IN  THE  HOUSE 

of  Wisconsin  and  the  two  great  leaders  were 
Senator  ^Sawyer  and  Henry  C.  Payne,  who 
afterward  became  a  member  of  Eoosevelt's 
cabinet. 

Sawyer  was  a  man  of  striking  individuality  and 
of  much  native  force.  He  was  a  typical  lumber 
man,  equipped  with  great  physical  strength 
and  a  shrewd,  active  mind.  He  had  tramped 
the  forests,  cruised  timber,  slept  in  the  snow, 
built  saw  mills  —  and  by  his  own  efforts  had 
made  several  million  dollars.  So  unlearned  was 
he  that  it  was  jokingly  said  that  he  signed 
his  name  "P.  Sawyer"  because  he  could  not 
spell  Philetus.  He  was  nevertheless  a  man  of 
ability,  and  a  shrewd  counselor  in  the  prevailing 
political  methods.  He  believed  in  getting  all 
he  could  for  himself  and  his  associates  whenever 
and  wherever  possible.  I  always  thought  that 
Sawyer's  methods  did  not  violate  his  conscience; 
he  regarded  money  as  properly  the  chief  in 
fluence  in  politics.  Whenever  it  was  necessary, 
I  believe  that  he  bought  men  as  he  bought  saw- 
logs.  He  assumed  that  every  man  in  politics 
wras  serving,  first  of  all,  his  own  personal  in- 


IN  THE  HOUSE  55 

terests  —  else  why  should  he  be  in  politics?  He 
believed  quite  simply  that  railroad  corporations 
and  lumber  companies,  as  benefactors  of  the 
country,  should  be  given  unlimited  grants  of 
public  lands,  allowed  to  charge  all  the  traffic 
could  bear,  and  that  anything  that  interfered 
with  the  profits  of  business  was  akin  to 
treason. 

I  had  not  been  long  in  Washington  before 
Sawyer  invited  me  to  go  with  him  to  call  on  the 
President.  I  can  remember  just  how  he  looked 
climbing  into  his  carriage  —  a  short,  thick-set, 
squatty  figure  of  a  man  with  a  big  head  set  on 
square  shoulders  and  a  short  neck  —  stubby 
everywhere.  I  remember  he  talked  to  me  in  a 
kindly,  fatherly  manner  —  very  matter-of-fact 
-  looking  at  me  from  time  to  time  with  a 
shrewd  squint  in  his  eye.  He  had  no  humor, 
but  much  of  what  has  been  called  "horse  sense." 
His  talk  was  jerky  and  illiterate;  he  never  made 
a  speech  in  his  life. 

We  called  on  President  Cleveland  and  on  all 
the  cabinet  officers.  His  form  of  introduction 
was  exactly  the  same  at  each  place  we  stopped. 


56  IN  THE  HOUSE 

He  was  not  quite  sure,  always,  of  my  name; 
" Toilette"  he  called  me.  He  would  say: 

"This  young  man  we  think  a  great  deal  of; 
we  think  he  is  going  to  amount  to  something.  I 
want  you  to  be  fair  to  him.  I'd  like  him  to  get 
all  that  is  coming  to  him  in  his  district.  I  hope 
you  will  treat  him  right  when  he  has  any  busi 
ness  in  your  department." 

As  we  drove  away  from  our  last  call,  Sawyer 
asked  me  if  I  had  in  mind  any  particular  com 
mittee  in  the  House  upon  which  I  desired  to 
serve.  I  told  him  I  had  thought  it  over  and  I 
wanted  to  go  on  some  committee  where  I  could 
make  use  of  my  legal  knowledge.  I  could  not 
hope  to  be  assigned  to  the  great  Committee 
on  Judiciary,  so  I  told  him  that  I  should  like 
to  go  on  the  Committee  on  Public  Lands. 
I  innocently  explained  that  many  land  grant 
forfeitures  were  pending  and  I  should  enjoy 
grappling  with  the  legal  questions  which  they 
presented.  Sawyer  looked  at  me  benignly  and 
said: 

"Just  leave  that  to  me;  don't  say  another 
word  about  it  to  anybody.  I  know  Carlisle; 


IN  THE  HOUSE  57 

served  with  him  in  the  House.     Just  let  me  take 
care  of  that  for  you." 

I  was  very  grateful,  and  confided  in  his 
promises.  But  when  Carlisle  announced  the 
committees  I  was  astonished  to  find  that  Ste- 
phenson  —  now  a  Senator  from  Wisconsin  - 
was  appointed  to  the  Committee  on  Public 
Lands  and  that  I  had  been  assigned  to  a  place 
on  the  Committee  on  Indian  Affairs.  Sawyer 
came  to  me  promptly  and  told  me  that  he  could 
not  secure  my  appointment  to  Public  Lands,  but 
he  was  sure  I  would  enjoy  my  work  on  Indian 
Affairs.  There  was  a  reason  for  putting  me  on 
this  committee,  and  not  upon  Public  Lands, 
which  I  did  not  appreciate  until  later.  I  had 
been  quite  too  frank  in  expressing  an  interest 
in  land  grant  forfeitures.  It  did  not  occur  to  the 
Senator  that  I  might  develop  "foolishly  senti 
mental"  ideas  against  robbing  Indian  reserva 
tions  of  the  pine  timber  in  which  they  were  very 
rich. 

I  was  disappointed,  but  so  eager  to  get  to 
work  at  something  definite  that  I  went  out 
immediately  and  invested  quite  a  little  money 


58  IN  THE  HOUSE 

in  second-hand  books  on  Indians.  I  also  had 
all  the  treaties  and  documents  relating  to  Indians 
sent  to  my  rooms.  It  made  quite  a  library.  I 
studied  these  books  diligently,  nor  was  it  long 
before  I  began  to  feel  a  good  deal  of  sympathy 
with  the  Indians.  Years  afterward,  when  I  was 
on  the  Committee  on  Indian  Affairs  of  the 
Senate,  an  old  Indian  chief  who  had  come  to 
Washington  to  plead  for  the  interests  of  his 
people  paid  me  one  of  the  most  amusing  com 
pliments  I  ever  received.  Quay  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  though  a  cold-bloode3*""jfolitician,  was 
one  of  the  best  friends  the  Indians  ever  had  in 
Congress.  Having  Indian  blood  in  his  veins 
he  invariably  opposed  legislation  which  was 
unjust  to  the  Indians.  Well,  this  old  chief  came 
to  see  me  and  I  helped  him  all  I  could.  After 
ward,  in  trying  to  give  me  the  highest  measure 
of  praise  he  could  bestow,  he  said: 
"La  Follette  —  him  all  same  Quay." 
I  soon  found  out  why  Sawyer  had  secured  my 
appointment  to  the  Committee  on  Indian  Af 
fairs.  It  was  the  first  illuminating  glimpse  I 
had  of  the  inside  methods  of  political  organiza- 


IN  THE  HOUSE  59 

tion.  Wellborn  of  Texas  was  then  chairman  of 
this  committee.  He  strongly  resembled  Stephen 
A.  Douglas,  was  an  able  man  and  a  real  orator. 
Cleveland  appointed  him  federal  judge  in  Cali 
fornia  where  he  has  made  a  fine  record.  He  is 
to-day  one  of  the  strong  men  of  the  state.  We 
have  never  lost  the  touch  of  friendship  since 
our  service  together  in  the  House. 

Wellborn  appointed  me  a  sub-committee  of 
one  to  consider  a  bill  introduced  by  Guenther 
of  Oshkosh  to  sell  the  pine  timber  from  the 
Menominee  Indian  Reservation  in  Wisconsin. 
Guenther  represented  Sawyer's  Congressional 
district.  When  I  began  to  study  the  bill  more 
closely,  it  seemed  to  me  to  offer  unlimited  op 
portunities  for  stealing  the  timber  from  the  In 
dians.  I  concluded  to  consult  J.  D.  C.  Atkins, 
the  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs,  about  it. 
He  read  the  bill  through;  then  he  looked  at 
me  over  his  glasses  and  said: 

"Mr.  La  Follette,  I  think  this  is  a  little  the 
worst  Indian  bill  I  ever  saw." 

"Will  you  write  me  a  letter  as  Commissioner, 
saying  so?"  I  asked. 


60  IN  THE  HOUSE 

In  due  time  I  got  his  letter  and  a  few  days 
later  Guenther  came  to  me  and  said: 

"Bob,  why  don't  you  report  that  bill  out?" 

I  told  him  it  was  a  bad  bill  and  that  I  should 
report  it  adversely. 

"Oh,  don't  do  that,"  he  said;  "I  know  noth 
ing  about  the  bill.  Sawyer  asked  me  to  intro 
duce  it,  and  he  introduced  one  exactly  like  it 
in  the  Senate.  He  has  passed  his  bill  over  there, 
and  he  wants  me  to  get  the  House  bill  favorably 
reported  and  on  the  calendar  by  the  time  his 
bill  comes  over." 

When  I  insisted  that  I  would  not  report  it 
favorably,  that  ended  it  and  the  bill  died  in 
Committee.  Sawyer  never  spoke  to  me  about 
the  affair. 

I  was  very  soon  to  meet  this  question  of  po 
litical  self-seeking  in  another  form.  My  first 
speech  in  Congress  was  made  on  April  22,  1886. 
It  was  on  the  so-called  "pork-barrel"  bill  for 
river  and  harbor  appropriations.  I  was  then, 
as  I  am  now,  heartily  in  favor  of  generous 
expenditures  of  national  funds  for  waterways 
and  harbors,  but  the  scramble  for  unwarranted 


IN  THE  HOUSE  61 

appropriations  was  then  and  is  now  not  short 
of  scandalous. 

The  bill  called  for  $15,000,000,  the  largest 
amount  at  that  time  ever  appropriated.  It 
ignored  the  recommendations  of  the  government 
engineers  that  sixty -three  improvements  already 
begun  should  be  completed,  and  provided  for 
completing  only  five  of  these  unfinished  im 
provements.  This  recommendation  was  ignored 
in  order  to  use  the  funds  to  project  over  one 
hundred  new  improvements  started  to  satisfy 
the  demands  of  members  for  some  of  the  "pork." 
I  argued  that  if  the  sums  necessary  to  complete 
unfinished  work  were  used  to  inaugurate  new 
improvements,  then  the  next  Congress  would 
be  compelled  to  set  aside  still  larger  appro 
priations  merely  to  keep  pace  with  the  destruc 
tion  resulting  from  the  action  of  the  elements 
upon  the  uncompleted  improvements. 

I  argued  that  Congressmen  should  not  con 
tend  as  rivals  for  these  appropriations,  each 
seeking  all  he  could  get  as  a  grab  for  his  district, 
but  that  they  should  regard  the  river  and  harbor 
bill  as  a  great  national  measure. 


62  IN  THE  HOUSE 

"I  believe  that  the  tendency  of  such  legis 
lation  is  to  debauch  the  country  and  dull  the 
moral  instincts  of  the  American  Congress." 

I  went  on  further  to  say,  "There  is  but  one 
right  course.  Not  one  dollar  of  this  money 
belongs  to  any  state,  any  district,  any  locality. 
It  all  belongs  to  the  United  States,  and  what 
ever  is  appropriated  with  any  other  view  is  a 
misappropriation  of  public  funds.  I  might  use 
a  severer  term.  No  man  can  shirk  the  respon 
sibility.  ...  He  cannot  say,  'My  con 
stituents  want  this  money,  and  I  will  therefore 
vote  for  it,  though  I  do  not  approve  of  the 
measure.'  The  money  is  neither  his  nor  theirs. 
So  far  as  this  money  is  concerned,  when  by  his 
vote  he  takes  it  from  the  treasury,  he  becomes, 
in  a  liberal  use  of  the  word,  a  trustee  of  the 
money,  and  he  is  bound  to  expend  it  for  the 
benefit  of  national  commerce." 

I  knew  that  the  bill  would  pass,  as  it  did,  but 
I  felt  that  I  ought  at  least  to  express  my  con 
victions  upon  the  subject.  I  did  not  oppose 
the  bill;  I  opposed  the  policy. 

This  little  speech  —  it  does  not  seem  of  much 


IN  THE  HOUSE  63 

importance  to  me  now  -  -  was  commented  on, 
not  only  in  Wisconsin,  but  by  the  press  of  the 
country.  The  New  York  Tribune,  the  New 
York  Sun  and  other  papers  gave  it  favorable 
editorial  notice.  This  helped  me  in  my  district 
and  aided  in  the  contest  for  renomination. 

The  opposition  of  Boss  Keyes  and  the  old- 
time  politicians  of  each  of  the  counties  of  the 
district  in  my  first  nomination  and  election, 
warned  me  of  the  enemy  I  would  have  to  meet 
in  the  convention  of  1886.  If  I  ever  expected 
to  serve  more  than  one  term  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  I  knewT  I  had  to  fight  for  that 
privilege.  It  had  seemed  to  me  in  the  very 
beginning  that  a  public  official  should  deal 
directly  with  the  people  whom  he  was  to  serve. 
I  did  not  go  to  Boss  Keyes  for  the  office  of  district 
attorney.  The  district  attorney  was  not  em 
ployed  by  Keyes,  but  by  the  people.  The  office 
was  not  his  to  bestow;  it  was  theirs.  It  was 
the  same  in  my  first  fight  for  Congress.  After 
I  had  won  the  nomination  and  election,  it  gave 
me  still  greater  confidence  in  the  people.  But 
while  the  district  attorney  did  his  work  in  the 


64  IN  THE  HOUSE 

county  where  the  voters  could  see  how  they 
were  being  served,  Washington  was  a  long  way 
off.  How  were  the  people  to  know  about  the 
proceedings  of  Congress  and  the  work  of  their 
Congressman? 

I  thought  it  all  over.  It  was  clear  to  me  that 
the  only  way  to  beat  boss  and  ring  rule  was  to 
keep  the  people  thoroughly  informed.  Machine 
control  is  based  upon  misrepresentation  and 
ignorance.  Democracy  is  based  upon  knowl 
edge.  It  is  of  first  importance  that  the  people 
shall  know  about __jtheir___^vernm€nt  and  the 
work  of  their  public  servants.  :<Ye  shall  know 
the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free." 
This  I  have  always  believed  vital  to  self  govern 
ment. 

j      Immediately  following  my  election  to  Con- 

/  gress  I  worked  out  a  complete  plan  for  keeping 

my  constituents  informed  on  public  issues  and 

the  record  of  my  services  in  Congress;  it  is  the 

j    system  I  have  used  in  constantly  widening  circles 

ever  since. 

There  were  five  counties  in  my  district,  La 
Fayette,  Grant,  Green,  Dane,  and  Iowa.  I 


IN  THE  HOUSE  65 

secured  from  the  county  clerks'  offices  a  com 
plete  list  of  all  the  voters  who  had  voted  in  the 
last  election. 

I  had  the  names  written  on  large  sheets,  one 
township,  sometimes  two,  to  a  sheet.  Then  I 
sent  the  sheets  to  a  friend  in  each  county  who 
filled  in  all  the  information  he  could,  indicating 
especially  the  strong  men  in  each  community  - 
those  wrho  were  leaders  of  sentiment.  To  this 
information  I  added  the  results  of  my  own  ac 
quaintance  in  thefiistrict.  This  gave  me  a 
complete  descriptive  poll  list  of  my  district. 

When  some  Congressman  made  a  speech  on 
sound  money  —  Reed  or  Carlisle  -  - 1  would  get 
the  necessary  number  of  copies  of  that  speech, 
and  send  them  to  those  interested  in  the  money 
question.  When  the  Oleomargarine  bill,  the 
Interstate  Commerce  bill,  and  other  important 
legislation  was  pending,  I  sent  out  speeches 
covering  the  debates  thoroughly.  In  this  way 
I  suppose  I  sent  out  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
speeches,  my  own  and  others. 

It  is  not  generally  known  that  Congressional 
speeches,  reprinted  from  the  Record  for  dis- 


66  IN  THE  HOUSE 

tribution,  must  be  paid  for  by  the  Congressman 
or  Senator  ordering  them  at  a  cost  equal  to  that 
of  any  first-class  printing  establishment.  The 
size  of  the  bills  I  paid  the  government  printing 
office  for  many  years  was  one  of  the  reasons  why 
I  found  myself  so  poor  when  I  left  Congress.  A 
Congressman  in  those  days  received  only  five 
thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  no  secretarial  or 
clerk  hire  whatever  unless  he  chanced  to  be 
chairman  of  a  committee.  The  result  was  that 
the  bulk  of  the  actual  mechanical  work  of  keep 
ing  up  all  this  correspondence  and  pamphlet 
eering  fell  upon  Mrs.  La  Follette  and  myself. 
Occasionally  we  indulged  in  the  extravagance  of 
hiring  a  stenographer  for  a  few  weeks,  but  as  a 
rule,  while  I  was  engaged  in  my  Congressional 
duties,  Mrs.  La  Toilette  worked  until  the  late 
hours,  writing  letters,  addressing  envelopes  and 
sending  away  stacks  of  speeches.  We  do  not 
look  upon  those  days  with  any  self  pity.  We 
were  both  young  and  vigorous  and  they  were 
among  the  happiest  and  most  hopeful  years  we 
ever  spent.  We  gave  ourselves  comparatively 
few  amusements,  but  those  that  we  did  take,  we 


MRS.    LA    FOLLETTE    IN    THE    EARLY    90'S 

'  She  was  a  sane,  far-sighted  counselor  of  the  little  group  of  Progressives 
throughout  all  of  the  Wisconsin  campaigns." 


IN  THE  HOUSE  67 

% 

enjoyed  supremely.  Our  interest  in  the  drama 
has  always  been  keen,  and  I  remember  that 
whenever  Booth  and  Barrett  came  to  play 
in  Baltimore  —  they  never  came  to  Washing 
ton  owing  to  Booth's  aversion  to  the  scene  of 
the  tragedy  with  which  his  brother  was  con 
nected  —  Mrs.  La  Toilette  and  I  threw  dis 
cretion  utterly  to  the  winds,  and  went  over  to 
every  evening  performance  while  their  engage 
ment  lasted. 

The  task  of  building  up  and  maintaining  an 
intelligent  interest  in  public  affairs  in  my  district 
and  afterward  in  the  state,  was  no  easy  one. 
But  it  was  the  only  way  for  me,  and  I  am  still 
convinced  that  it  is  the  best  way.  Of  one  thing  * 
I  am  more  and  more  convinced  with  the  passage 
of  the  years  —  and  that  is,  the  serious  interest 
of  our  people  in  government,  and  their  willing 
ness  to  give  their  thought  to  subjects  which  are 
really  vital  and  upon  which  facts,  not  mere 
opinions,  are  set  forth,  even  though  the  presen-  { 
tation  may  be  forbidding.  Get  and  keep  a  dozen 
or  more  of  the  leading  men  in  a  community 
interested  in,  and  well  informed  upon  any  public 


68  IN  THE  HOUSE 

question  and  you  have  laid  firmly  the  founda 
tions  of  democratic  government. 

Never  in  my  political  life  have  I  derived  bene 
fit  from  the  two  sources  of  power  by  which  ma- 
V  thine  politics  chiefly  thrives  —  I  mean  patronage, 
;the  control  of  appointments  to  office,  and  the  use 
of  large  sums  of  money  in  organization.  During 
'my  fight  in  Wisconsin  the  old  machine  used  its 
power  of  dispensing  patronage  to  the  utmost 
against  me.  When  I  became  governor  I  ap 
pointed  supporters  of  the  Progressive  movement 
to  offices  whenever  there  were  appointments  to 
make.  These  men  did  all  in  their  power  for  the 
success  of  our  campaigns.  But  sirch  service  is  al 
ways  criticized  by  the  opposition,  and  discounted 
by  the  public  because  of  the  self  interest  of  the 
officials,  and  does  about  as  much  harm  as  good. 
As  soon  as  I  had  the  legislature  with  me  in  1905, 
I  secured  the  passage  of  the  strongest  Civil  Ser 
vice  law  that  could  be  framed,  wiping  out  the 
whole  system  of  spoils  in  state  offices.  To-day 
there  is  less  patronage-mongering  in  Wisconsin 
than  in  any  other  state  in  the  Union.  As  for 
federal  patronage,  I  have  had  very  little  to  dis- 


IN  THE  HOUSE  ,    69 

pense  —  nor  have  I  needed  any.  When  Mr.  Taft, 
soon  after  he  became  President,  began  withhold 
ing  patronage  from  the  Insurgents,  with  the  idea, 
I  suppose,  of  disciplining  them,  I  stated  my  own 
views  and  the  position  of  the  Insurgents  editori 
ally  in  La  Follette's  Magazine,  as  follows : 

"It  is  w^ell  to  have  this  patronage  matter 
understood.  The  support  of  the  Progressives 
for  progressive  legislation  will  be  given  without 
reference  to  patronage  or  favors  of  any  sort. 
That  support  wilL.b.e_accorded  _  on  conviction.  < 
And  itos_idle  for  the  PresidenlTto  presume  that 
he  can  secure  adherence  from  the  Progressive 
ranks  for  any  policies,  or  support  for  any  legis 
lation  reactionary  in  its  character  for  the  .sole 
purpose  of  party  solidarity." 

i^ 
iLyou  are  going  direct  to  the  people^you-have. 

33.0  need  of  patronage.     Moreover,  you  hayejio  / 
need  of  organization  in  the  complicated  way  in^  '/ 
which  politics  has  J^en  organized,  jnjthe_p,ast, 
nor  of  the  use  of  large  sums  of  money.     The 
only  organization  through  which  I  have  attained 
whatever  success  it  has  been  my  lot  to  win  has 
consisted  of  a  clerical  force  to  send  out  literature 
and  speeches,  and  a  manager  to  arrange  speak- 


70  IN  THE  HOUSE 

ing  campaigns.  The  money  for  the  campaigns 
which  I  have  conducted  —  and  there  has  never 
been  much  of  it  —  has  been  supplied,  not  by 
business  organizations,  but  by  men  who  were 
sincerely  interested  in  the  cause. 

In  general  it  can  be  said  of  all  the  group  known 
as  Insurgents  or  Progressives  that  they  have  won 
their  victories  without  complicated  organi 
zation,  without  patronage,  often  without  news 
paper  support  and  with  the  use  of  very  little 
money.  Nothing  could  show  more  conclusively 
that  they  represent  a  popular  feeling  so  deep 
that  it  cannot  be  influenced  by  machine  methods. 
- — At  the  end  of  my  first  two  years  in  Congress, 
I  was  renominated,  overcoming  all  opposition, 
and  carried  my  district,  which  had  given  me  only 
400  plurality  in  1884,  by  more  than  3,500;  and 
the  third  time,  in  1888,  I  was  elected  by  a 
majority  of  nearly  3,000. 

As  time  passed  the  more  familiar  I  became 
with  the  inner  affairs  of  Congress,  the  more 
plainly  I  saw  the  constant  crowding  in  of  private 
interests,  seeking  benefits.  I  soon  had  another 
very  illuminating  experience. 


IN  THE  HOUSE  71 

A  voluminous  bill  was  before  the  Committee 
on  Indian  Affairs  providing  for  the  opening  for 
settlement  of  11,000,000  acres  of  the  Sioux  Indian 
Reservation  in  Dakota.  As  it  was  being  read 
in  committee,  we  came  to  a  provision  to  ratify 
an  agreement  made  by  the  Chicago,  Milwaukee 
and  St.  Paul  and  Chicago  and  Northwestern 
railroads  with  the  Indians  for  rights  of  way 
through  the  reservation.  My  previous  study 
of  documents  on  Indian  Affairs  here  be 
came  useful.  I  discovered  that  in  addition  to 
the  rights  of  way,  one  company  was  given  the 
exclusive  right  to  acquire  715  acres,  and  the 
other  828  acres  of  land,  ostensibly  for  "terminal 
facilities,"  and  that  each  road  was  to  have  at 
intervals  of  every  ten  miles  an  additional  160 
acres  of  land,  presumably  for  "station  privi 
leges."  I  stopped  the  reading  at  this  point. 

"This  looks  to  me  like  a  town  site  job,"  I  said. 
"I  cannot  see  why  these  railroads  should  have 
so  much  more  land  than  is  necessary  to  use 
directly  in  connection  with  their  business  as 


common  carriers." 


I  had  no  sooner  uttered  these  words  than  the 


72  IN  THE  HOUSE 

member  of  the  committee  sitting  upon  my  right 
nudged  me  and  whispered,  "Bob,  you  don't 
want  to  interfere  with  that  provision.  Those 
are  your  home  corporations'9 

But  I  did  interfere  and  had  the  paragraphs 
laid  over  and  we  adjourned  the  session  of  the 
committee  at  twelve  o'clock  to  attend  the  meet 
ing  of  the  House.  I  had  not  been  in  my  seat 
half  an  hour  when  a  page  announced  that 
Senator  Sawyer  wanted  to  see  me.  I  found  him 
waiting  for  me  near  the  cloakroom.  We  sat  on 
a  settee  and  talked  of  general  matters  for  some 
time.  As  the  Senator  rose  to  go  he  said,  ap 
parently  as  an  afterthought: 

"Oh,  say,  La  Follette,  your  committee  will 
have  coming  up  before  long  the  Sioux  Indian 
bill.  There  is  a  provision  in  it  for  our  folks  up 
in  Wisconsin,  the  Northwestern  and  St.  Paul 
railroads.  I  wish  you'd  look  after  it." 

"Senator  Sawyer,"  I  said,  "we  have  already 
reached  that  provision  in  the  bill,  and  I  am 
preparing  an  amendment  to  it.  I  don't  think 
it's  right." 

"Is  that  so,"  said  the  Senator,  in  apparent 


IN  THE  HOUSE  73 

surprise.     "Come  and  sit  down  and  let's  talk 
it  over.51 

We  argued  for  an  hour,  Sawyer  presenting 
every  point  in  favor  of  granting  the  railroads  the 
prior  right  to  acquire  all  the  land  they  wanted. 
This  was  the  first  time  Sawyer  had  directly  and 
personally  attempted  to  influence  me  in  a  matter 
of  legislation.  I  was  respectful  to  him,  but  could 
not  yield  to  his  view.  I  told  him  that  I  thought 
it  right  to  permit  the  railroads  to  acquire  the 
land  necessary  for  rights  of  way,  yards,  tracks, 
sidings,  depots,  shops,  roundhouses,  and  indeed, 
all  they  needed  solely  for  transportation  pur 
poses,  and  should  favor  such  a  provision.  But  as 
framed,  the  provision  plainly  allowed  them  to  get 
prior  and  exclusive  rights  to  much  more  land  for 
town  site  and  other  speculative  uses ;  that  besides 
they  were  not  required  to  build  their  lines  within 
any  definite  time,  and  might  hold  the  land  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  others  indefinitely,  without  turn 
ing  a  sod  or  laying  a  rail;  that  it  was  unjust  to 
the  Indians  and  the  public,  and  I  could  not  sup 
port  it.  He  was  not  ill  tempered,  and  said  he 
would  see  me  again  about  it. 


74  IN  THE  HOUSE 

Forty -eight  hours  later  Henry  C.  Payne  ar 
rived  in  Washington.  He  was  Secretary  of  the 
Republican  State  Central  Committee,  political 
manager  of  the  Wisconsin  machine,  lobbyist  for 
the  St.  Paul  Railroad  and  the  Beef  Trust,  and 
had  the  backing  of  the  important  corporate 
interests  of  the  state.  Obviously  he  had  been 
summoned  to  Washington  by  Sawyer. 

Everybody  was  taught  to  believe  that  Payne 
had  some  occult  and  mysterious  power  as  a 
political  manager,  and  that  when  he  said  a  thing 
would  happen  in  politics  or  legislation,  it  always 
did  happen.  He  was  a  perfect  ideal  of  that 
union  of  private  business  and  politics  that  car 
ried  on  its  face  apparent  devotion  to  the  public 
interest.  A  fine  head  and  figure,  meditative, 
introspective  eyes,  a  quiet,  clear-cut,  convincing 
way  of  stating  his  views,  he  was  certainly  the 
most  accomplished  railroad  lobbyist  I  ever 
knew.  His  intimate  friendship  and  business 
relation  with  the  Chairman  of  the  Democratic 
State  Central  Committee  in  Wisconsin  came  to 
be  one  of  the  best-known  amenities  in  the  politics 
of  the  day  in  that  state.  It  was  said  that  there 


IN  THE  HOUSE  75 

was  a  well-worn  pathway  between  the  back 
doors  of  their  private  offices. 

Well,  Sawyer  and  Payne  came  to  see  me  night 
after  night  for  a  week  or  more.  Payne  was 
rather  stiff  and  harsh,  but  Sawyer  was  fatherly 
—  much  like  a  parent  reasoning  with  a  wayward 
child. 

Nils  P.  Haugen,  Congressman  from  the  tenth 
district,  occupied  a  seat  near  me.  One  day  he 
said: 

"I  want  to  tell  you  something.  I  saw  Payne 
last  night  at  the  Ebbitt  House,  and  he  went  for 
you.  He  said  'La  Toilette  is  a  crank;  if  he 
thinks  he  can  buck  a  railroad  company  with 
5,000  miles  of  line,  he'll  find  out  his  mistake. 
We'll  take  care  of  him  when  the  time  comes.' ' 

Payne  was  as  good  as  his  word.  He  fought 
me  ever  afterward. 

But  I  got  my  amendment  through  allowing 
the  railroad  to  acquire  the  necessary  right  of 
way,  twenty  acres  of  land  for  stations,  and  only 
such  additional  land  as  the  Secretary  of  the 
Interior  should  find  to  be  a  necessary  aid  to 
transportation,  prohibiting  the  use  or  sale  of 


J 

76  IN  THE  HOUSE 

any  of  said  lands  for  town  site  or  other  purposes, 
and  providing  that  each  of  said  roads  should 
within  three  years  locate,  construct,  and  operate 
their  lines  or  forfeit  the  lands  so  acquired  to 
the  government. 

I  felt  even  then,  and  learned  far  better  after 
ward,  what  it  meant  to  oppose  my  own  party 
organization;  but  when  party  leaders  work  for 
corporations  and  railroad   control,   when  they 
do  not  represent  the  people,  what  other  course 
is  open  for  a  man  who  believes  in  democratic 
government?     I  b^lie^eiLthen,  as  Lbelieye  now, 

hat  the  only  salvation  for  the  Republican 
party  lies  in  purging  itself  wholly  from,  the  in- 
luence  of  financial  interests.  It  is  for  this, 
ndeed,  that  the  group  of  men  called  Insurgents 
lave  been  fighting  —  and  it  is  this  that  they 

II  contend  for  to  the  end.     I  here  maintain 
vith  all  the  force  I  possess  that  it  is  only  as  the 
Republican   party   adopts   the   position   main- 
ained  to-day  by  the  Progressives  that  it  can 
ive  to  serve  the  country  as  a  party  organi 
zation. 

Two  of  the  incidents  which  I  have  related  as 


IN  THE  HOUSE  77 

examples  showing  how  private  interests  sought 
advantages  in  Congress  involve  the  Wisconsin 
organization.  But  Wisconsin  was  no  whit  worse 
than  other  states.  While  Sawyer  and  Payne 
were  getting  things  for  their  "home  corpora 
tions"  Quay  was  getting  things  for  his  and 
Aldrich  for  his,  and  Gorman  for  his  corporations. 
And  they  all  traded  back  and  forth,  Sawyer 
helping  Aldrich  and  Quay  in  getting  what  they 
wanted,  and  they  helping  him  to  get  what  he 
wanted.  At  first  I  saw  only  sporadic  cases, 
such  as  I  have  mentioned,  and  it  was  some  time 
before  I  learned  how  thoroughly  all  these  in 
terests  worked  together,  each  serving  the  other. 
It  was  in  my  second  term  that  I  crossed  the 
trail  of  the  national  organizations  of  both  parties 
meddling  in  legislation  for  corporate  interests. 
In  the  session  before  the  presidential  campaign 
of  1888  an  effort  was  made  to  pass  the  Nica- 
raguan  Canal  bill.  Congressman  Haugen  and 
I  had  been  active  in  opposing  this  bill.  One 
day  we  received  an  invitation  to  visit  Senator 
Sawyer  in  his  committee  room  at  the  Senate 
end  of  the  capitol,  and  did  so.  When  we  arrived 


78  IN  THE  HOUSE 

we  found  Senator  Sawyer  and  the  famous  Colonel 
William  W.  Dudley  alone  together.  Dudley 
was  Chairman  of  the  executive  committee  of 
the  National  Republican  Committee.  He  was 
a  most  genial  man  personally,  a  brave  soldier 
of  the  Civil  War,  who  left  a  leg  at  Gettysburg. 
But  he  was  an  old-school  politician  —  and 
•  practical.  It  was  in  the  following  campaign 
that  the  Colonel  acquired  the  title  of  "  Blocks  - 
of-five  Dudley,"  through  the  publication  of  a 
letter  to  an  Indiana  follower  giving  minute 
instructions  as  to  how  voters  should  be  rounded, 
up,  watched  by  faithful  lieutenants  and  voted 
in  "blocks  of  five." 

When  we  entered  the  room,  Sawyer  said: 
"I  have  called  you  boys  over  here  to  talk  with 
you  about  the  Nicaraguan  Canal  bill.  I  hear 
you  are  ag'in  it.  Now  that  bill  is  all  right,  and 
ought  to  pass.  Dudley  here  knows  all  about  it. 
Dudley,  you  tell  the  boys  about  it." 

Colonel  Dudley  argued  that  it  was  very  es 
sential  that  the  measure  then  on  the  House 
calendar  should  pass  before  the  adjournment  of 
the  session.  Not  meeting  with  any  favorable 


IN  THE  HOUSE  79 

response  from  Haugen  and  myself,  he  finally 
appealed  to  us  in  the  interests  of  the  Republican 
party,  and  stated  that  if  the  bill  was  permitted 
to  pass  before  the  adjournment  of  Congress,  the 
parties  interested  in  the  canal  would  contribute 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  the  Republican 
campaign  fund.  Having  understood  that  Phil 
Thompson,  a  prominent  Democrat  and  an  ex- 
Representative,  who  had  the  privilege  of  the 
floor,  was  active  in  behalf  of  the  same  measure, 
I  asked  Dudley  what  the  Democrats  expected 
if  the  bill  passed,  and  he  frankly  admitted  that 
there  would  be  a  similar  amount  contributed 
to  the  Democratic  National  Committee.  I 
jokingly  suggested  that  if  the  Democrats  were 
to  receive  a  like  contribution,  one  would  offset 
the  other.  Dudley  replied  in  the  same  vein, 
that  Republicans  had  a  lot  more  sense  than 
Democrats  in  spending  their  campaign  funds, 
and  then  proceeded  seriously  to  explain  that  a 
plan  was  afoot  by  which  the  Republicans  hoped 
to  carry  Delaware;  that  in  Delaware  at  that 
time  only  persons  owning  real  estate  could  vote, 
and  that  it  was  proposed  to  use  this  fund,  or  a 


80  IN  THE  HOUSE 

part  of  the  fund,  to  buy  a  tract  of  swamp  land, 
and  parcel  it  out  among  the  laboring  men  so  as 
to  qualify  them  as  voters.  We  stated  that  it 
was  a  matter  of  principle  with  us,  and  that  we 
should  not  withdraw  our  opposition  to  the  bill. 

The  bill  did  not  pass  at  that  session.  It  did 
pass  with  some  amendment  in  1889. 

A  striking  incident  which  occurred  near  the 

end  of  my  service  in  Congress,  vividly  illustrated 

the   relationship   between   private   interests   in 

various  parts  of  the  country  in  seeking  legislation 

\  for  special  privilege. 

A  Ship  Subsidy  bill  was  pending  in  the  House, 
so  sweeping  in  its  provisions,  that  as  one  of  its 
opponents  somewhat  extravagantly  said,  it 
would  "subsidize  every  fishing  smack  in  New 
England  waters."  It  was  a  flagrant  effort  on 
the  part  of  private  interests  to  get  into  the  public 
treasury.  The  Democrats  were  generally  op 
posed  to  the  measure.  The  Republicans  were 
then  in  control  of  the  House  and  generally 
supported  it.  I  was  opposed  to  it,  because  it 
granted  a  privilege  to  private  interests.  There 
fore  I  began  to  canvass  among  my  Republican 


IN  THE  HOUSE  81 

friends  to  see  if  I  could  not  persuade  enough  of 
them  to  join  in  voting  with  the  Democrats  to 
defeat  the  bill.  These  first  tests  of  strength 
came  a  few  days  before  the  close  of  the  session, 
about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Enough 
Republicans  voted  with  the  Democrats  to  defeat 
it  by  a  narrow  margin  of  five  votes.  While  the 
clerk  recapitulates  the  roll  call  on  a  close  vote, 
effort  is  often  made  to  get  enough  members  to 
change  their  votes  to  reverse  the  result.  There 
was  great  bustling  about  by  the  leading  sup 
porters  of  the  measure,  seeking  out  members 
who  might  be  induced  to  change  their  votes. 
I  saw  what  was  afoot.  Myron  McCord  was  a 

^^^^^••••^^^^^^^^^^^^ggfrg^g,.,       —  Jf        Aj/y& 

Republican  member  of  the  Wisconsin  delegation?*! 
with  whom  I  had  discussed  the  measure  and 
who  had  voted  against  the  bill.  Suddenly  I  saw 
a  group  of  members  coming  out  of  the  cloak 
room,  urging,  almost  pushing  McCord  down  the 
aisle.  He  called  out,  "Mr.  Speaker  — Mr. 
Speaker."  Obviously  he  was  about  to  change 
his  vote. 

There  was  confusion  everywhere  —  the  same 
thing  going  on  in  different  parts  of  the  House. 


82  IN  THE  HOUSE 

Without  at  all  reckoning  the  consequences,  I 
jumped  from  my  seat,  slipped  through  the 
crowd,  and  seizing  McCord  by  his  collar,  jerked 
him  suddenly  backward.  Taken  by  surprise,  un 
prepared  for  the  pull,  he  nearly  lost  his  feet,  and 
I  kept  him  going  until  I  had  him  back  in  the 
cloakroom. 

"Tell  me,  Myron,"  I  said,  "what  do  you 
mean?  Why  are  you  trying  to  change  your 
vote?  You  promised  to  vote  against  the  bill." 

He  did  not  resent  what  I  had  done.  He  was 
ashamed,  and  said: 

"Bob,  I've  got  to  change  my  vote.  Sawyer 
has  just  sent  a  page  over  here  and  insists  on 
my  voting  for  the  bill.  I've  got  to  do  it.  He 
has  loaned  me  money;  he  has  a  mortgage  on 
everything  I  possess.  And  he  is  on  his  way 
over  here  now.  He  seems  to  have  a  personal 
interest  in  the  passage  of  the  bill." 

He  was  much  agitated. 

"Myron,"  I  said,  "here  is  your  hat  and  coat. 
Get  off  the  floor  as  quickly  as  you  can." 

I  went  with  him  out  of  the  door  leading  from 
the  House  floor  into  the  corridor  back  of  the 


IN  THE  HOUSE  83 

Speaker's  desk.  As  I  returned  and  was  passing 
up  the  centre  aisle,  whom  should  I  see  but 
Senator  Sawyer  hurrying  down  the  aisle  to 
meet  me.  He  was  white  with  rage.  He  came 
directly  at  me,  and  jabbing  me  in  the  chest  with 
the  ends  of  his  stubby  fingers,  said  (I  remember 
his  exact  words) : 

"Young  man,  young  man,  what  are  you  do 
ing?  You  are  a  bolter.  The  Republican  plat 
form  promises  this  legislation.  You  are  a  bolter, 
sir;  you  are  a  bolter." 

I  was  furious.     I  revolted  at  the  whole  thing. 

"Senator  Sawyer,"  I  said,  "you  can't  tell 
me  how  to  vote  on  any  question.  You've  no 
business  on  this  floor  seeking  to  influence  legis 
lation.  You  are  violating  the  rules.  You  get 
out  of  here,  or  I  will  call  the  Speaker's  attention 
to  you." 

I  turned  toward  the  Speaker's  desk.  He 
knew  I  would  do  what  I  said,  and  left  the  floor 
immediately  without  another  word.  And  the 
House  bill  was  beaten  and  a  substitute  measure 
passed. 

A  day  or  two  later  I  chanced  to  meet  Sawyer 


84  IN  THE  HOUSE 

in  the  corridor  of  the  capitol.  He  stopped  me 
and  apologized,  saying,  "I  am  sorry  for  what 
I  said  the  other  night.  You  were  right  and  I 
was  wrong.  You  have  a  perfect  right  to  vote 
as  you  please."  I  met  him  a  number  of  times 
after  that  before  finally  leaving  Washington, 
and  he  was  as  cordial  toward  me  as  ever. 

In  those  days  a  Congressman  was  obliged  to 
spend  even  more  time  than  now  in  departmental 
matters,  especially  pensions,  widen  are  now 
covered  by  general  laws.  At  that  time  the 
pressure  was  tremendous  and  a  Congressman 
with  many  old  soldiers  in  his  district  was  kept 
busy  examining  testimony  and  untangling  their 
records.  During  most  of  my  service  in  Congress 
I  spent  from  a  quarter  to  a  third  of  my  time 
following  up  pension  cases.  This  did  not  relate 
to  private  pensions,  but  to  the  work  of  investi 
gation  at  the  Pension  Office,  where  the  methods 
were  not  so  systematized  as  now. 

I  recall  one  interesting  case.  An  old  man, 
by  the  name  of  Joseph  Wood,  living  in  Madison, 
very  poor,  had  a  claim  pending  for  an  injury 
received  at  Pittsburg  Landing.  His  case  had 


ROBERT    M.    LA    FOLLETTE 
At  the  age  of  twenty-nine;  taken  when  he  was  first  elected  to  Congress. 


IN  THE  HOUSE  85 

been  repeatedly  rejected  because  the  records 
of  the  War  Department  showed  that  his  regi 
ment  had  not  arrived  at  Pittsburg  Landing 
until  forty-eight  hours  after  the  claimant  swore 
he  had  been  injured.  On  going  through  his 
papers  I  found  the  affidavits  of  his  captain  and 
twenty-five  other  soldiers  all  swearing  to  the 
facts  as  stated  by  him.  I  was  sure  these  twenty- 
six  men  had  not  committed  perjury.  I  went  to 
the  War  Department,  thinking  there  might  have 
been  a  clerical  error  in  copying,  but  the  record 
was  just  as  reported  at  the  Pension  Office. 

Finding  that  the  77th  Ohio,  in  which  Wood 
had  served,  was  brigaded  with  the  army  which 
General  Sherman  commanded,  I  wrote  to  Sher 
man.  He  replied,  in  substance,  "  See  my  mem 
oirs,  page  so-and-so."  The  date  there  agreed 
with  the  one  given  by  the  claimant.  I  went 
back  to  the  War  Department  and  said,  "  General 
Sherman  knows  when  the  77th  Ohio  reached 
Pittsburg  Landing."  The  records  were  taken 
to  the  Secretary  of  War.  He  said  they  could 
not  be  changed  even  on  the  authority  of  General 
Sherman's  memoirs.  I  seemed  up  against  it, 


6  IN  THE  HOUSE 

when  it  flashed  across  my  mind  that  the  docu 
ment  looked  too  new  to  be  the  original  record. 
Upon  inquiry,  I  found  this  was  true.  The  old 
worn  records  had  been  stored  away  years  before. 
Some  one  was  detailed  to  examine  them,  and 
sure  enough,  there  had  been  a  mistake  in 
copying.  General  Sherman  and  my  old  soldier 
friend  were  right.  Thirty -six  hundred  dollars 
back  pension  brought  comfort  to  that  old  man 
and  his  wife. 

It  seems  to  me  now,  as  I  look  back  upon  those 
years,  that  most  of  the  lawmakers  and  indeed 
most  of  the  public,  looked  upon  Congress  and 
the  government  as  a  means  of  getting  some  sort 
of  advantage  for  themselves  or  for  their  home 
towns  or  home  states.  River  and  harbor  im 
provements  without  merit,  public  buildings 
without  limit,  raids  upon  the  public  lands  and 
forests,  subsidies  and  tariffs,  very  largely  occu 
pied  the  attention  of  Congressmen.  Lobbyists 
for  all  manner  of  private  interests,  especially 
the  railroads,  crowded  the  corridors  of  the  capitol 
and  the  Washington  hotels  and  not  only  argued 
for  favorable  legislation,  but  demanded  it. 


IN  THE  HOUSE  87 

Of  this  period,  Bryce  in  his  "American  Com 
monwealth,"  says: 

"The  doors  of  Congress  are  besieged  by  a 
whole  army  of  commercial  and  railroad  men  and 
their  agents  to  whom,  since  they  have  come  to 
form  a  sort  of  profession,  the  name  of  'lobbyists' 
is  given.  Many  Congressmen  are  personally  in 
terested  and  lobby  for  themselves  among  their 
colleagues  from  the  vantage  ground  of  their 
official  positions.  Thus  a  vast  deal  of  solicita 
tion  and  bargaining  goes  on.  .  .  .  That 
the  capitol  and  the  hotels  at  Washington  are  a 
nest  of  intrigues  and  machinations  while  Con 
gress  is  sitting  is  admitted  on  all  hands;  how 
many  of  the  members  are  tainted  no  one  can 
tell." 

The  genesis  of  the  private  interest  idea  in 
our  government  is  perfectly  clear.     While  the 
country  was  developing  rapidly,  with  capital      > 
scarce  and  competition  strong,  it  often  seemed  ^ 
that  the  best  way,  indeed  the  only  way,    to 
secure  the  highest  public  interest  was  through 
the   encouragement   and   protection  of  private 
interests.     To  the   wisest   men   of   the   earlier 


88  IN  THE  HOUSE 

times  in  this  country  it  seemed  important  to 
encourage  private  interests,  for  example,  in 
building  railroads;  hence  vast  tracts  of  land 
were  granted  to  railroad  companies.  Our  forest 
and  other  natural  resources  seemed  unlimited, 
and  it  was  anything  for  growth  and  development. 
For  a  long  time,  only  in  the  case  of  railroads  did 
the  public  generally  begin  to  draw  the  line  at 
which  the  protection  of  private  interests  be 
came  the  legalized  plunder  of  the  public.  In  the 
newest  and  least  developed  sections  of  the  coun 
try,  as  in  Alaska,  the  line  is  still  somewhat 
obscured.  Private  interests,  fed  thus  upon  pub 
lic  favors,  became  enormously  strong.  Later 
the  combination  form  of  organization  appeared, 
and  competition  began  to  be  wiped  out.  Trusts 
came  into  existence. 

But  the  private  interests,  the  "infant  indus 
tries,"  the  "struggling  railroads,"  instead  of 
wanting  less  government  help  when  they  grew 
\  strong,  demanded  more.  It  was  easier  to  grow 
rich  by  gifts  from  the  government  than  by 
efficient  service  and  honest  effort. 

At  the  time  I  was  in  Congress,  from  1885  to 


IN  THE  HOUSE  89 

1891,  the  onslaught  of  these  private  interests  was 
reaching  its  height.  I  did  not  then  fully  realize 
that  this  was  the  evidence  of  a  great  system  of 
"community  of  interests,"  which  was  rapidly 
getting  control  of  our  political  parties,  our 
government,  our  courts.  The  issue  has  since 
become  clear.  Whether  it  shows  itself  in  the 
tariff,  in  Alaska,  in  municipal  franchises,  in  the 
trusts,  in  the  railroads,  or  the  great  banking 
interests,  we  know  that  it  is  one  and  the  same 
thing.  And  there  can  be  no  compromise  with 
these  interests  that  seek  to  control  the  govern 
ment.  Either  they  or  the  people  will  rule. 

I  have  endeavored  in  this  chapter  to  show 
how,  in  those  days,  the  consideration  of  private 
interests  of  all  sorts  overwhelmed  Congress.  I 
have  showed  how,  in  several  instances,  and  in  a 
limited  way,  I  tried  to  fight  against  them  —  - 
singly.  But  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  there 
was  no  hopeful,  no  constructive  movement  then 
going  forward,  or  that  patriotic  men,  in  both 
branches  of  Congress,  were  not  doing  their  best 
to  stem  the  tide.  Such  men  as  Sherman  in  the 
Senate  and  Reagan  in  the  House  were  real  con- 


ft  K«T    Cat    / 


»„ 


IN  THE  HOUSE 

structive  statesmen.  While  I  was  in  Congress 
the  first  efforts  were  made,  through  the  passage 
of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Law,  the  Sherman 
Anti-trust  Act  and  other  measures,  to  reassert 
the  power  of  popular  government  and  to  grapple 
with  these  mighty  private  interests;  but  of  that 
significant,  constructive  work  I  shall  speak  in 
the  next  chapter. 

Even  then  the  two  diametrically  opposite 
ideas  of  government  had  begun  a  death  grapple 
for  mastery  in  this  country.  Shall  government 
be  for  the  benefit  of  private  interests,  as  the 
Sawyers  of  those  days,  and  the  Quays,  Gormans, 
and  the  Aldriches  believed?  Or  shall  govern 
ment  be  for  the  benefit  of  the  public  interest? 
This  is  the  simple  issue  involved  in  the  present 
conflict  in  the  nation. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  REED  CONGRESS  AND  THE  NEW 

NATIONAL    ISSUES 

I  COME  now  with  great  personal  interest  to 
an  account  of  what  was,  with  a  single  excep 
tion,  the  most  tumultuous  and  exciting  ses 
sion  of  Congress  in  all  our  history,  and  one  of  the 
most  important.  It  was  the  so-called  "Reed 
Congress"  of  1889  to  1891. 

For  the  first  time  in  fourteen  years  —  since 
18 75 --the  Republican  party  had  come  into 
full  control  of  all  the  departments  of  govern 
ment;  but  while  Harrison  had  comfortably 
defeated  Cleveland,  and  Blaine  was  in  the 
cabinet,  the  House  of  Representatives  was 
Republican  by  so  narrow  a  majority  that  there 
was  some  talk  that  we  might  not  be  able  to 
organize  the  House  and  elect  a  Speaker. 

It    developed    immediately    that    McKinley 

91 


92  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

and  Reed  were  to  be  the  two  chief  candidates 
of  the  Republicans  for  the  Speakership,  and  the 
lines  of  the  contest  were  soon  sharply  drawn. 
I  was  for  Reed;  I  was  for  Reed  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  I  felt  for  McKinley  a  peculiar 
admiration  and  affection.  I  thought  Reed  bet 
ter  equipped  in  temperament  and  character  for 
the  struggle  which  we  all  knew  must  follow. 

McKinley  and  Reed  were  not  at  all  alike. 
McKinley  drew  men  to  him  by  the  charm,  court 
liness,  and  kindliness  of  his  manner;  Reed  drove 
and  forced  men;  he  scourged  them  with  his  irony 
-  stung  them  with  his  wit.  McKinley  was  a 
magnetic  speaker;  he  had  a  clear,  bell-like 
quality  of  voice,  with  a  thrill  in  it.  He  spoke 
with  dignity,  but  with  freedom  of  action.  The 
pupils  of  his  eyes  would  dilate  until  they  were 
almost  black,  and  his  face,  naturally  without 
much  color,  would  become  almost  like  marble  - 
a  strong  face  and  a  noble  head.  When  inter 
rupted  either  in  a  speech  or  debate,  instead  of 
seeking  to  put  his  man  at  a  disadvantage,  as 
Reed  did,  he  sought  to  win  him.  He  never  had 
a  harsh  word  for  a  harsh  word,  but  rather  a 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  93 

kindly  appeal:  "Come  now,  let  us  put  the 
personal  element  aside  and  consider  the  prin 
ciple  involved." 

Reed,  on  the  other  hand,  impressed  one  with 
his  power.  He  was  rough  and  sharp  and  strong. 
He  was  one  of  the  ablest  men  in  either  house  of 
Congress  —  next  to  Sherman,  who  was  a  broader 
statesman,  perhaps  the  ablest.  He  had  a  mar 
velous  gift  of  expression.  His  sentences  were 
short,  crisp,  strong,  and  his  diction  was  perfect* 
but  his  voice  was  harsh  and  disagreeable,  es 
pecially  in  its  higher  notes.  As  a  debater  he 
has  rarely  been  equaled  in  our  public  life;  he 
had  a  caustic  wit,  was  often  sarcastic,  ironical, 
sometimes  droll.  He  would  metaphorically  lay 
hold  of  his  opponent,  shake  him  for  a  few  minutes 
like  some  great  mastiff,  and  then  drop  him  into 
his  seat  all  crumpled  up.  And  yet,  though  witty 
in  his  dealings  with  individual  members,  he 
never  trifled  with  the  business  of  the  House. 
Some  of  his  passages  with  Carlisle,  when  Carlisle 
was  Speaker,  were  among  the  best  examples  of 
4,  close  forensic  reasoning  I  have  ever  heard.  Both 
were  as  fine  parliamentary  athletes  as  were  ever 


94  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

to  be  found.  I  remember  vividly  a  characteris 
tic  passage  between  them.  It  was  near  the  end 
of  the  session,  and  three  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
An  appropriation  bill  was  pending.  Some  one 
offered  an  amendment.  If  it  passed,  some 
advantage  would  accrue  to  the  Democrats;  if 
it  failed,  some  advantage  to  the  Republicans. 
A  point  of  order  was  raised  against  it  and  Carlisle 
overruled  the  point.  Reed  was  on  his  feet  — 
Reed,  •  three  hundred  pounds,  six  feet  tall.  He 
was  the  leader  on  the  Republican  side.  I  re 
member  he  had  just  two  gestures;  one  an  im 
pressive  downward  movement  with  his  extended 
index  finger,  and  in  the  other,  during  his  higher 
flights,  he  held  one  great  clenched  fist  high 
above  his  head  —  like  some  colossus.  He  was 
a  striking  figure. 

"I  contend,"  he  said,  on  the  occasion  to  which 
I  refer,  "that  the  Speaker  is  wrong." 

Carlisle  standing  there  in  the  Speaker's  place 
answered,  "I  shall  be  glad  to  hear  the  gentle 
man  from  Maine." 

Reed  retorted:  "The  Speaker  is  wrong  for 
this  reason"  —  and  put  it  in  a  nutshell. 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  95 

"Ah,  but  the  gentleman  from  Maine  is  in 
error  because" — and  Carlisle  stated  his  con 
tention  without  a  superfluous  word. 

"Yes,"  answered  Reed,  "but  Mr.  Speaker" 
—  and  for  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  it  was  parry  and 
thrust,  thrust  and  parry,  Reed  pressing  Carlisle 
from  position  to  position  until  finally  the  Speaker 
said: 

"The  gentleman  from  Maine  is  clearly  right. 
The  Speaker  is  wrong  and  reverses  his  ruling." 

It  was  during  the  speakership  fight,  in  which 
the  interest  of  the  country  was  intense,  that  I 
first  met  Theodore  Roosevelt.  He  was  at  that 
time  Civil  Service  Commissioner,  and  was  much 
interested  in  the  success  of  Reed.  I  liked  him. 
I  thought  him  an  unusually  able  and  energetic 
man,  but  I  think  no  one  then  realized  the  power 
of  growth  that  was  in  him.  We  were  about  the 
same  age;  we  were  both  interested  in  Reed's 
election,  and  I  saw  quite  a  little  of  him  that 
winter. 

Well,  we  chose  Reed  Speaker,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  the  expected  clash  took  place.  In 
previous  Congresses  and  under  the  old  rules 


96  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

it  was  possible  for  an  obstructive  minority,  by 
refusing  to  vote,  to  prevent  the  House  from 
accomplishing  anything.  A  change  in  the  rules 
seemed  absolutely  necessary  if  the  Republicans 
were  to  enact  any  legislation,  and,  indeed,  that 
was  one  of  the  issues  in  Reed's  election.  The 
initial  test,  as  I  recall,  came  on  some  minor 
matter,  and  I  have  never,  in  any  legislative 
body,  seen  anything  like  it  for  intensity  of 
emotion  and  excitement. 

It  was  evident  beforehand  that  the  Demo 
crats  were  preparing,  by  refusing  to  vote,  to 
make  a  point  of  no  quorum  and  prevent  the 
consideration  of  the  motion  which  was  before 
the  House.  Reed  with  McKinley  and  other 
members  of  the  Committee  on  Rules  were  in 
conference  in  the  Speaker's  room.  The  time 
came  for  action.  Reed  returned  to  the  floor 
of  the  House.  I  remember  how  he  loomed  up 
behind  the  Speaker's  desk.  His  face  was  set 
and  grim.  His  eyes  were  dead  black,  and  be 
yond  those  of  any  man  I  ever  knew  his  were  the 
eyes  of  power. 

The  motions  necessary  to  close  the  debate 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  97 

were  made;  the  yeas  and  nays  were  demanded; 
the  clerk  was  ordered  to  call  the  roll. 

As  we  anticipated,  the  Democrats  refused  to 
vote.  When  the  roll  was  completed  a  point  of 
no  quorum  was  made.  This  was  the  moment 
of  suspense.  What  would  Reed  do?  WTiat 
would  the  Democrats  do?  A  perfect  hush  fell 
upon  the  House;  I  found  myself  holding  fast 
to  my  desk.  Reed  raised  his  gavel,  and  with  the 
mallet  end  in  his  hand,  deliberately  pointed  out 
and  called  the  names  of  members  present  and 
not  voting,  and  directed  the  clerk  to  so  record 
them.  Then  he  proclaimed  a  quorum  present, 
announced  the  vote,  and  declared  the  result. 

Instantly  members  on  the  Democratic  side 
were  on  their  feet  and  rushed  down  the  aisles 
toward  the  Speaker.  An  angry  roar  went  up; 
there  were  cries  of  "Czar,"  "Tyrant."  Im 
mediately  the  Republicans  pressed  forward  to  the 
support  of  the  Speaker.  The  least  thing  in  the 
world  —  if,  for  example,  some  one  had  by  acci 
dent  been  thrust  against  another  —  might  have 
precipitated  a  conflict  of  serious  consequences. 

As  for  Reed,  he  never  stirred  from  his  place, 


98  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

but  stood  unmoved  and  with  a  look  held  them, 
until  one  by  one  they  dropped  back  into  their 
places. 

Reed  appointed  me  a  member  of  the  Ways 
and  Means  Committee,  which  was  then  as  now 
the  leading  committee  of  the  House.  Among 
its  members  were  an  unusually  talented  group 
of  men.  On  the  Republican  side  were  McKinley, 
the  chairman,  who  afterward  became  President; 
McKenna,  now  a  member  of  the  Supreme  Court; 
Burrows  of  Michigan,  who  went  to  the  Senate; 
Dingley  of  Maine,  and  Payne  of  New  York,  both 
of  whom  afterward  became  leaders  of  the 
House;  Bayne  of  Pennsylvania;  Gear  of  Iowa, 
afterward  United  States  Senator.  On  the 
Democratic  side  were  Carlisle  of  Kentucky, 
afterward  Senator  and  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury;  Flower  of  New  York,  who  served  as  governor 
of  his  state;  Roger  Q.  Mills  of  Texas,  author  of  the 
Mills  bill,  and  afterward  United  States  Senator; 
Breckenridge  of  Arkansas,  afterward  Minister 
to  Russia;  and  McMillan  of  Tennessee,  after 
ward  governor  of  his  state. 

I  was  younger  than  any  of  the  other  members. 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  99 

I  think  my  appointment  came  largely  as  the 
result  of  a  speech  I  made  on  the  tariff  in  the 
preceding  session.  It  was  during  the  discussion 
of  the  Mills  bill.  I  had  taken  no  part  in  the 
debate,  although  I  had  been  trying  hard  to  pre 
pare  myself  on  the  tariff,  studying  all  the  great 
debates  on  the  subject,  going  back  to  Clay  and 
Hamilton. 

Ordinarily,  Roger  Q.  Mills,  as  the  father  of 
the  measure,  should  have  closed  the  debate,  but 
for  some  reason  that  task  fell  to  Carlisle,  the 
Speaker.  Reed  closed  for  the  Republicans. 
Both  speeches  were  very  able  efforts  and  made  a 
profound  impression;  but  both  had  been  pre 
pared  beforehand  and  each  without  reference 
to  the  other. 

I  felt  that  Carlisle's  speech  was  a  dangerous 
one  for  the  Republicans.  It  dealt  with  former 
tariff  legislation,  particularly  wTith  the  effect  of 
the  acts  of  1846  and  1857.  I  was  sure  that 
Carlisle  was  not  only  in  error  in  his  statement 
of  historical  facts,  but  misleading  in  his  deduc 
tions  from  statistics. 

I  believed  strongly  that  Carlisle  ought  to  be 


100  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

answered,  though  I  felt  that  it  would  be  pre 
sumptuous  for  a  member  of  my  youth  and  in 
experience  to  attempt  it.  Finally  I  went  to 
Reed,  told  him  how  I  felt  and  urged  him  to 
reply  to  Carlisle.  He  responded  by  advising 
me  in  a  jocular  way  to  answer  Carlisle  myself. 
I  then  went  with  the  same  proposition  to  Mc- 
Kinley.  And  McKinley  also  said  to  me: 

"Bob,  you  answer  it." 

"Well,"  I  said,  a  bit  nettled,  "I  will  answer 
it." 

I  had  a  cartload  of  Congressional  Records  and 
reports  sent  to  my  home.  I  put  in  two  or  three 
weeks  of  the  hardest  kind  of  work  and  prepared 
a  speech  about  an  hour  and  a  quarter  long.  I 
knew  that  under  the  rules  I  could  get  only  five 
minutes,  but  I  hoped  to  make  enough  impression 
in  five  minutes  to  secure  an  extension  of  time 
from  some  other  member.  I  read  the  speech 
in  advance  to  just  one  member  of  Congress, 
William  E.  Fuller  of  Iowa,  who  had  been  my 
good  friend,  and  he  advised  me  to  deliver  it. 

I  waited  my  opportunity,  and  began  my 
answer  to  Carlisle  with  the  statement,  "That 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  101 

the  representations  and  conclusions  of  the  dis 
tinguished  gentleman  from  Kentucky  in  refer 
ence  to  this  most  interesting  decade  (1846-1857) 
remain  unchallenged  and  unanswered,  is  my 
only  excuse  for  calling  the  attention  of  the  House 
to  the  subject  now."  I  did  my  best  to  crowd 
everything  I  could  into  the  first  few  minutes, 
keeping  my  eyes  more  or  less  on  Reed,  the  Re 
publican  leader.  He  was  working  at  his  desk, 
writing.  After  I  had  been  speaking  for  a  time 
he  stopped  and  turned  around  to  listen  to  me. 

Presently  the  gavel  fell,  cutting  off  my  speech. 
Butterworth  and  Reed  both  came  to  their  feet. 
Butterworth  asked  that  my  time  be  extended  so 
as  to  enable  me  to  finish  my  remarks.  Reed 
also  interposed  —  I  can  recall  just  how  he  looked 
saying: 

"Mr.  Speaker,  I  think  that  courtesy  ought  to 
be  allowed  the  gentleman.  This  speech  ought 
not  to  be  interrupted  here." 

Unanimous  consent  was  given,  and  I  con 
tinued. 

The  speech,  which  was  afterward  widely  cir 
culated,  evidently  so  impressed  the  party  leaders 


102  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

as  to  assure  me  a  place  on  the  Ways  and  Means 
Committee. 

As  soon  as  the  committee  was  organized  we 
began  serious  work  upon  the  preparation  of 
the  measure  afterward  known  as  the  McKin- 
ley  bill.  McKinley  apportioned  the  different 
schedules  to  sub -committees  for  special  consider 
ation.  I  was  assigned  to  prepare  the  agri 
cultural,  jute,  hemp,  flax,  and  tobacco  schedules 
and  was  one  of  three  on  the  metal  schedule. 
Gear,  of  Iowa,  and  I  made  the  chief  fight  to  put 
sugar  on  the  free  list. 

For  many  weeks  we  held  open  hearings  and 
scores  of  men  of  all  classes  appeared  before  us 
and  presented  their  views.  Most  of  the  informa 
tion  we  then  received,  as  I  now  realize,  con 
sisted  of  the  loose  statements  of  interested  men. 
The  facts  and  figures  of  the  manufacturers  were 
accepted  as  reliable.  I  think  at  that  time  I  did 
not  seriously  question  this  unscientific  method 
of  securing  information  as  a  basis  for  such  im 
portant  legislation  as  that  upon  the  tariff. 

We  relied  upon  the  historical  theory  of  the 
protective  tariff  as  advocated  by  the  Republican 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  103 

party.  Hamilton,  Clay,  Elaine,  and  McKinley 
believed  that  it  made  little  difference  how  high 
the  duties  were  fixed,  because  free  competition 
betwreen  domestic  manufacturers  within  the 
tariff  wall  would  inevitably  force  prices  down, 
insuring  the  lowest  charge  to  the  consumer 
commensurate  with  paying  American  wages  to 
American  workmen. 

Elaine  in  his  " Twenty  Years  in  Congress" 
makes  domestic  competition  the  cornerstone 
of  protection.  He  says: 

"Protection  .  .  .  does  not  invite  com 
petition  from  abroad,  but  is  based  on  the  con 
trary  principle,  that  competition  at  home  will 
always  prevent  monopoly  on  the  part  of  capital 
ists,  assure  good  wages  to  the  laboring  man  and 
defend  the  consumers  against  the  evils  of  ex 
tortion." 

But  the  trouble  has  been  that  domestic  com 
petition  did  not  prove  the  strong  regulator  of 
commerce  that  the  early  protectionists  believed 
it  would.  Money  interests  began  to  form  monop 
olies  behind  the  tariff  wall  and -both  consumers 
and  wage-earners  began  to  suffer  from  extortion. 


104  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

The  difference  in  view  on  the  tariff  between 
the  progressive  Republicans  and  the  so-called 
"stand-pat"  Republicans  lies  exactly  here. 
The  Progressives  have  seen  this  vast  revolution 
in  economic  conditions  and  have  recognized  the 
need  of  radical  changes  in  our  tariff  system,  while 
the  stand-pat  Republicans,  led  by  Aldrich, 
Penrose,  Lodge,  Smoot,  and  others,  have  refused 
to  recognize  the  changed  conditions.  They 
believe  in  keeping  the  tariff  wall  as  high  as 
possible  notwithstanding  the  growth  of  extor 
tionate  monopolies.  They  believe  it  more  im 
portant  to  keep  up  the  profits  of  the  combined 
manufacturers  than  to  keep  down  the  prices  to 
the  people.  The  passage  of  the  Payne- Aldrich 
tariff  bill  of  1909,  of  which  I  shall  have  more  to 
say  later  in  the  appropriate  place,  was  the  most 
outrageous  assault  of  private  interests  upon  the 
people  recorded  in  tariff  history. 

Progressive  Republicans  have  demanded  a 
Tariff  Commission  of  scientific  experts,  with 
power  to  investigate  and  discover  the  actual 
differences  in  labor  cost  between  American  and 
foreign  products.  We  do  not  wish  to  have  the 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  105 

tariff  reduced  below  that  difference,  but  we 
realize  that  we  cannot  accept  the  statements  of 
interested  manufacturers.  In  my  speech  in 
1890  supporting  the  McKinley  bill,  I  referred 
to  the  wide  difference  in  conditions  between 
farmers  and  wage-earners  in  America  com 
pared  with  those  in  foreign  countries.  I  said: 

"Gentlemen  may  reason  upon  any  line  they 
choose;  they  may  approach  the  subject  from 
either  side;  but,  sir,  there  is  no  escape  from 
the  conclusion  that  labor  is  the  great  issue  in 
volved.  The  workers  in  every  field  of  industry 
in  this  broad  land  are  the  ones  vitally  interested." 

Where  there  can  be  shown  to  be  no  difference 
in  labor  cost  I  am  for  free  trade.  But  the  dif 
ference  must  be  determined  by  real  experts  who 
understand  the  use  and  limits  of  statistics.  This 
was  my  criticism  at  the  last  session  of  Congress, 
of  the  present  so-called  tariff  board  appointed 
by  Mr.  Taft.  This  board  reported  to  Congress 
the  average  difference  on  print  paper  and  wood 
pulp,  but  I  showed  that  their  "average"  had 
no  meaning  at  all.  It  was  made  up  from  many 
establishments,  some  of  which  had  old,  anti- 


106  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

quated  machinery  which  ought  long  ago  to  have 
gone  to  the  scrap  heap.  In  these  establishments 
the  labor  cost  was  excessively  high,  and  we  do 
not  believe  in  protecting  inefficient  management. 
On  the  other  hand,  by  digging  into  their  report, 
I  showed  from  their  own  statistics  that  the  up- 
to-date  efficient  plants  in  this  country  were 
making  paper  just  as  cheaply  as  it  can  be  made 
in  Canada,  and  for  that  reason  1  was  for  free 
print  paper  and  wood  pulp.  A  tariff  board  is 
a  poor  substitute  for  the  haphazard  hearings 
on  the  McKinley,  Dingley,  and  Payne-Aldrich 
bills  if  the  statistical  experts  do  not  know  how 
to  collect  and  interpret  their  statistics.  While 
the  present  tariff  board  may  gather  much  valu 
able  information,  it  has  no  power  of  command 
ing  the  facts  from  unwilling  manufacturers;  it 
does  not  meet  the  requirement  that  every  mem 
ber  shall  be  specially  trained  for  the  service,  it 
is  insufficiently  supplied  with  funds,  and  it 
reports  to  the  executive  rather  than  the  legis 
lative  branch  of  the  government.  Its  lack  of 
power  was  well  expressed  by  its  capable  chair 
man,  Prof.  Henry  C.  Emery,  in  a  speech  to  the 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  107 

American  Association  of  Woolen  and  Worsted 
Manufacturers  on  December  8,  1910.  He  said: 

"You  must  not  think  I  am  joking  about  this 
thing,  but  there  is  a  joke  about  it,  and  the  joke 
is  this:  I  have  no  powers  whatsoever.  The 
tariff  board  has  no  powers.  There  is  really  no 
such  thing  as  a  tariff  board.  The  law  says  that 
for  certain  purposes  the  President  may  'employ 
such  persons'  as  he  sees  fit.  I  am  one  of 
'  such  persons.'  That  is  all." 

The  Tariff  Commission  should  be  at  the 
service  of  the  houses  of  Congress  instead  of  the 
semi-confidential  advisers  of  the  President.  For 
it  is  Congress  which  is  charged  with  the  duty  of 
framing  the  tariff  laws,  and  there  are  other 
things  besides  mere  statistics  that  Congress  must 
pass  upon.  Congress  must  determine  whether 
a  given  industry  shall  be  protected  at  all.  We 
,,do  not  want  to  protect  tropical  products  not 
suited  to  our  climate.  We  do  not  want  to 
protect  raw  material,  like  lumber  and  phos 
phates,  where  protection  merely  adds  to  the  exhaus 
tion  of  our  natural  resources.  Then,  before  Con 
gress  decides  that  a  given  industry  shall  be 


108  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

protected,  we  want  to  know  how  much  of  its 
claim  for  protection  is  due  to  its  own  inefficiency. 
We  ought  to  work  toward  a  condition  in  which 
American  enterprise,  good  management,  clever 
and  powerful  machinery,  intelligence  and  skill 
of  the  workers  will  enable  us  to  have  low  cost 
of  labor  along  with  high  wages  to  the  laborer. 

For  this  reason  we  want  to  know  also  what 
are  the  actual  wages  and  actual  standards  of 
living  of  American  labor  in  the  protected  in 
dustries.  If  men  are  working  twelve  hours  a 
day  seven  days  a  week,  as  they  are  in  the  steel 
industry,  whereas  their  competitors  in  England 
are  working  eight  hours  a  day  six  days  a  week, 
then  the  fact  that  our  labor  cost  is  less  than  the 
English  labor  cost  does  not  necessarily  require 
us  to  adopt  free  trade  in  steel  products.  Our 
tariff  should  be  based  on  what  American  labor 
ought  to  get  in  order  to  reach  our  ideal  of  living 
wages  suited  to  American  citizenship.  In  1890, 
when  we  were  working  on  the  McKinley  bill, 
the  iron  and  steel  workers  had  the  most  powerful 
trade  union  in  the  country.  There  was  no 
question  then  that  they  would  be  able  'to  get 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  109 

from  their  employers  their  fair  share  of  the  tariff 
protection.  But  their  union  was  broken  to  pieces 
afterward  by  the  Homestead  strike.  The  ques 
tion  of  how  American  labor  is  going  to  protect 
itself  against  the  trusts  is  a  serious  problem  fast 
looming  up  ahead  of  us.  Certainly  we  should 
not  reduce  the  tariff  so  low  as  to  shut  off  their 
hope  of  better  conditions.  If  their  unions  are 
destroyed  we  must  supplement  our  tariff  legis 
lation  by  labor  legislation. 

These  are  some  of  the  facts  which  a  really 
expert  Tariff  Commission  should  furnish  to 
Congress.  And  I  can  see,  by  comparison  with 
our  hearings  on  the  McKinley  bill,  how  such  a 
commission  would  be  of  incalculable  service  to 
\the  Ways  and  Means  Committee. 

But  to  return  to  my  story:  As  soon  as  the 
hearings  were  completed  the  committee  divided 
and  the  Democratic  members,  led  by  Carlisle 
and  Mills,  discontinued  their  attendance.  In 
doing  this  they  were  following  the  precedent 
set  by  the  Republicans  in  the  former  Congress, 
when  the  Mills  bill  was  being  framed  by  a 
Democratic  majority.  In  framing  the  measure 


110  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

each  sub -committee  reported  and  the  bill  was 
then  drafted  by  the  Republican  members.  I 
remember  spending  night  after  night  with  Mc- 
Kinley  in  his  rooms  in  the  Ebbitt  House  going 
over,  comparing,  and  arranging  the  paragraphs 
of  each  schedule. 

One  interesting  feature  of  our  deliberations  was 
our  various  consultations  with  James  G.  Blaine. 
Elaine  was  a  man  of  extraordinary  personality, 
possessing  those  peculiarities  of  temperament 
and  character  which  made  him  a  great  leader 
of  men.  I  never  was  an  ardent  Blaine  man.  I 
always  shared  the  Wisconsin  admiration  for 
Sherman,  and  it  was  a  disappointment  to  me 
when  Blaine  was  nominated  for  the  Presidency. 
He  was  a  man  who  had  to  be  defended;  and 
many  Republicans  who  were  not  infatuated  with 
him  were  somewhat  afraid  of  him. 

I  remember  especially  one  visit  that  the 
Republican  members  of  our  committee  paid  to 
Blaine  in  his  office  as  Secretary  of  State.  He 
was  not  then  in  good  health;  the  malady  to 
which  he  finally  succumbed  had  fastened  upon 
him.  His  face  was  chalky  white  and  as  he 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  111 

talked  I  remember  he  leaned  upon  his  desk. 
It  was  suggested  by  McKinley  that  he  sit  down. 
"No,  no,"  he  said,  "I  can't  talk  when  I  sit 
down."  The  only  thing  that  did  not  look  like 
death  in  his  face  was  his  brilliant  black  eyes. 

Elaine  was  one  of  the  most  effective  talkers 
we  have  had  —  clear,  easy,  copious,  and  with 
a  rare  grace  of  expression.  He  gave  us  his 
views  on  reciprocity,  and  before  the  bill  finally 
became  law  they  were  substantially  incorpo 
rated  in  Section  III.  At  that  time  Blaine  had 
begun  to  see  clearly  the  path  along  which  the 
high  protective  tariff  was  driving  us,  and  to 
realize  the  necessity  of  developing  our  foreign 
markets.  But  the  sort  of  reciprocity  which  he 
advocated  was  very  different  from  the  reci 
procity  advocated  by  President  Taft  and  op 
posed  by  many  of  the  Republican  Progressives 
in  the  last  session  of  Congress. 

Nothing  surprised  me  more  during  that  ses 
sion  than  the  misunderstanding  in  many  minds 
of  the  Republican  doctrine  of  reciprocity.  It 
was  astonishingly  confused  with  what  might  be 
called  the  Democratic  doctrine.  The  Repub- 


112  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

lican  doctrine,  as  expounded  by  Elaine,  is  based 
upon  the  protection  of  all  American  industries 
that  can  economically  be  conducted  in  this 
country.  It  then  places  a  high  tariff  on  articles, 
such  as  tropical  and  semi-tropical  products, 
that  cannot  be  produced  in  this  country  except 
at  excessive  cost.  But  this  tariff  is  not  for 
the  purpose  of  protection.  It  is  for  the 
purpose  of  "trading  capital."  Its  object  is 
to  enable  the  President  to  make  a  trade  with 
foreign  countries  by  offering  to  them  a  reduction 
of  duties  on  articles  which  we  do  not  care  to 
protect,  in  exchange  for  the  reduction  of  their 
duties  on  articles  which  we  wish  to  protect  but 
wliich  we  wish  also  to  export.  It  is  a  kind  of 
double  protection  for  American  industries  — 
protection  of  the  home  market  against  foreigners, 
and  extension  of  the  foreign  market  for  Ameri 
cans. 

But  the  Democratic  doctrine  applied  to  reci 
procity  is  exactly  the  opposite.  It  is  based 
upon  the  free  trade  theory.  It  proposes  to 
make  "trading  capital,"  not  of  the  industries 
which  we  cannot  build  up  economically,  but  of 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  113 

the  industries  which  we  want  to  protect.  In 
fact,  carried  to  the  extreme,  as  was  done  by 
President  Taft  in  his  Canadian  pact,  it  sacrificed 
the  farmers,  who,  with  the  laborers,  are  almost 
the  only  interests  we  want  to  protect,  in  favor 
of  the  trusts,  which  are  the  last  interests  needing 
protection.  It  proposed  to  reduce  our  tariffs 
on  farm  products  if  the  Canadians  would  reduce  ,  , 
their  tariffs  on  our  trust  products.  No  wonder  V 
the  Canadians  rejected  it!  and  I  believe  the 
Americans  would  have  rejected  it  if  they  could 
have  had  a  similar  campaign  of  education  upon 
it.  It  would  have  sacrificed  our  farmers  to 
Canadian  competition,  while  actually  strength 
ening  our  trusts  by  giving  them  cheaper  raw 
material;  and  it  would  have  placed  the  Cana 
dians  at  the  mercy  of  our  trusts,  so  that  they 
could  not  have  retained  the  advantages  of  their 
cheap  raw  material  after  their  own  manufac 
turers  were  driven  out.  It  was  also  an  attrac 
tive  bait  for  the  American  newspapers,  which 
were  influenced  in  its  favor  by  the  promises  of 
free  print  paper  and  wood  pulp.  In  my  speech 
in  the  Senate  I  proclaimed  that  the  suppression 


114  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

by  the  newspapers  of  news  against  reciprocity 
was  a  black  page  in  our  history. 

The  McKinley  tariff  bill  was  a  momentous 
measure.  It  aided  in  defeating  the  Republican 
party  in  1892,  but,  when  the  reaction  came, 
McKinley's  connection  with  it  was  largely  in 
strumental  in  making  him  President  of  the 
United  States. 

McKinley  believed  profoundly  that  the  in 
terests  of  the  whole  country,  agricultural  as 
well  as  manufacturing,  were  involved  in  the 
maintenance  of  such  duties  as  would  insure  the 
protection  of  all  articles  which  it  was  economi 
cally  possible  for  us  to  produce  in  this  country. 
That  meant  patriotism  to  him.  It  was  a  deep 
conviction,  almost  a  religion,  with  him.  No  one 
who  worked  with  him  could  doubt  it. 

A  few  months  after  his .  inauguration,  I  re 
ceived  a  telegram  from  President  McKinley  and 
also  from  Senator  Spooner,  offering  me  the 
position  of  Comptroller  of  the  Treasury.  It 
came  out  of  a  clear  sky:  I  was  not  a  candidate 
for  any  position  under  his  administration,  and 
I  declined  by  telegraph.  Later  I  called  on  him 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  115 

at  the  White  House,  explaining  why  I  could 
not  accept.  We  were  then  in  the  midst  of  the 
Wisconsin  fight,  and  besides  I  did  not  desire 
an  appointive  office.  We  sat  on  a  lounge  to 
gether  and  talked  over  our  old  days  in  Congress. 
He  told  me  what  his  hopes  and  ambitions  were 
as  to  extending  our  trade  abroad;  that  in  his 
selection  of  appointees  in  foreign  missions  and 
in  the  consular  service  he  hoped  to  secure  trained 
business  men  who  were  masters  in  the  lines  of 
trade  which  could  be  extended  in  the  countries 
to  which  they  were  sent.  It  was  McKinley's 
greatest  ambition,  now  that  the  country  had 
reached  its  highest  development  under  the  pro 
tective  system,  with  an  excess  of  production 
demanding  outlet,  to  round  out  his  career  by 
gaining  for  America  a  supremacy  in  the  markets 
of  the  world;  and  this  he  hoped  to  do  without 
weakening  the  protective  system. 

During  all  the  years  that  I  was  in  Congress 
the  stupendous  problems  which  now  confront 
us,  and  which  will  occupy  us  for  a  long  time 
to  come,  had  already  begun  to  appear.  I  mean 
the  problems  of  the  trusts  and  the  railroads: 


116  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

in  short,  the  problems  of  vast  financial  power 
in  private  hands.  In  those  years  the  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  for  the  first  time  began 
to  consider  seriously  the  condition  of  the  com 
mon  man  —  the  worker,  the  farmer.  While  I 
was  in  Congress  we  passed  two  measures,  which 
I  heartily  supported,  that  were  destined  to  be 
of  incalculable  value  to  the  plain  people.  One 
of  them  provided  for  the  organization  of  a 
'  ^national  Bureau  of  Labor,  which  has  since  been 
joined  with  bureaus  concerned  with  the  interests 
of  commerce  to  form  one  of  the  great  departments 
of  the  government  with  a  representative  in  the 
cabinet.  The  other  was  the  establishment  of  the 

\/ Department  of  Agriculture  —  the  recognition  of 
the  great  farming  industry  of  the  country.  Until 
that  time,  while  manufacturers  had  been  lav 
ishly  protected  and  while  railroads  had  received 
vast  grants  of  land,  the  wage-earner  and  the 
farmer  had  received  little  attention  and  no  direct 
benefits.  It  is  fortunate  that  this  cooperation 
of  the  government  with  wage-earners  and 

\J  farmers  took  the  form,  not  of  direct  financial 
advantage,  but  of  investigation,  publicity,  and 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  117 

education,  which  in  their  nature  are  soundly 
constructive. 

But  the  great  subjects  which  were  dealt  with 
for  the  first  time  in  those  three  Congresses  were 
the  railroad  and  trust  problems.  Real  states 
men  like  Sherman  and  Reagan  saw  that  the 
policy,  until  then  pursued,  of  serving  the  public 
interest  by  assisting  private  interests  was  no 
longer  tenable.  Private  interests  had  grown 
so  strong  that  it  was  felt  that  either  the  govern 
ment  must  control  them  with  a  strong  hand  or 
else  they  would  control  the  government. 

It  would  not  have  availed  then,  nor  will  it 
avail  now,  merely  to  pursue  the  negative  method 
of  removing  the  tariff  which  has  encouraged  the 
growth  of  trusts  and  combinations.  I  believe 
that  the  reduction  of  tariffs  will  furnish  a  small 
measure  of  relief  from  the  extortion  of  certain 
combinations,  but  it  will  not  cure  the  evil  of 
monopolies  in  private  hands.  Many  trusts, 
such  as  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  the  Anthra 
cite  Coal  trust,  and  the  whole  group  of  trusts 
based  upon  monopoly  of  patent  rights,  do  not 
now  depend  and  never  have  depended  for  their 


118  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

existence  or  their  power  upon  a  protective  tariff. 
Foreign  competition  will  not,  therefore,  cure 
the  trust  evil:  indeed,  it  will  encourage  the 
movement,  already  strongly  in  evidence,  toward 
the  organization  of  international  and  world- wide 
monopolies. 

No,  the  constructive  statesmen  of  those  times 
saw  clearly  that  there  must  be  positive  action 
of  government  either  to  prevent  or  to  control 
monopolies.  Two  very  significant  laws,  both 
of  which  I  supported  heartily,  were  therefore 
passed  in  those  years.  In  one  of  these  —  the 
A  Sherman  Anti-trust  Act  —  the  keynote  was 
prohibition,  the  effort  to  prevent  combination 
and  to  restore  competition  by  drastic  laws.  In 
the  other,  the  act  establishing  the  Interstate 
^Commerce  Commission  for  the  control  of  rail 
roads,  the  keynote  was  regulation. 

Of  all  the  legislation  of  those  years  none 
interested  me  so  deeply  as  the  measure  for  the 
creation  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commis 
sion,  which  we  passed  in  1887.  I  laid  there  the 
foundation  of  the  knowledge  which  afterward 
served  me  well  in  the  fight  in  Wisconsin,  and 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  119 

continued  of  value  after  I  came  back  to  the 
Senate  nineteen  years  later  when  railroad  legis 
lation  occupied  so  much  of  the  time  of  Con 
gress. 

I  was  strongly  in  favor  of  the  regulation  of 
railroads,  and  while  the  bill  as  proposed  did 
not  go  as  far  as  I  should  have  liked,  I  worked 
for  it  and  voted  for  it.  Of  all  the  speeches  I 
made  while  a  member  of  Congress,  the  one  on 
the  railroad  bill  gives  me  to-day  the  greatest 
satisfaction. 

It  was  a  bitter  fight.  To  Reagan  of  Texas, 
more  than  any  other  one  man  in  the  House, 
belongs  the  credit  for  the  passage  of  the  act. 
He  was  a  very  able  man,  a  Democrat.  He  was 
for  a  time  Postmaster-General  of  the  Confeder 
acy.  Reagan  afterward  went  to  the  Senate, 
but  because  of  his  public-spirited  interest  in 
transportation  questions,  his  desire  to  see  rail 
road  regulation  established  upon  correct  prin 
ciples  j  he  resigned,  went  home  to  Texas,  and 
took  the  chairmanship  of  the  state  railroad  com 
mission  at  a  much  lower  salary.  He  afterward 
took  a  great  interest  in  my  fight  for  railroad 


120  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

regulation  in  Wisconsin.  When  I  was  governor 
I  sent  him  the  original  draft  of  our  proposed 
Wisconsin  law,  and  was  much  aided  by  his  wise 
criticisms  and  suggestions. 

Another  method  of  dealing  with  private  in 
terests  also  appeared  during  those  sessions  of 
Congress  in  which  I  personally  was  particularly 
interested.  I  mean  the  regulation  of  industry 
by  internal  revenue  taxation.  The  measure  at 
issue  was  a  bill  to  check  the  manufacturers  of 
oleomargarine,  mostly  the  great  packers  of 
Chicago,  who  made  a  bogus  product  and  sold 
it  as  butter.  It  seriously  injured  the  dairy 
business  all  over  the  country.  The  bill  was 
debated  for  months  in  the  House.  The  con 
stitutional  argument  in  favor  of  the  measure 
had  taken  on  an  apologetic  tone.  The  bill 
imposed  an  internal  revenue  tax  on  oleomar 
garine.  It  could  not  be  defended  as  a  measure 
to  raise  revenue,  for  there  was  a  surplus  of 
revenue  in  the  treasury.  When  pressed  by 
opponents  of  the  bill  to  answer  whether  it  was 
a  proper  use  of  the  constitutional  power  to  levy 
a  tax  when  revenue  was  not  needed,  advocates 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  121 

of  the  measure  inconsistently  and  illogically 
admitted  that  it  was  not.  In  my  speech  I 
argued  openly  that  the  Constitution  authorized 
the  federal  government  to  use  the  taxing  power, 
that  there  was  no  limit  to  that  power  for  police 
purposes,  and  that  it  could  be  used  not  only  to 
raise  revenue  but  frankly  and  unreservedly  to  reg 
ulate  or  to  destroy  an  evil.  I  think  now  as  I  ^ 
thought  then,  that  the  power  of  internal  revenue 
taxation,  which  has  never  been  extensively  used/ 
in  this  country,  save  for  revenue  purposes,  will 
in  the  future  be  a  valuable  means  of  correcting 
some  of  the  abuses  which  have  grown  out  of 
modern  business  methods. 

In  my  preparation  of  this  oleomargarine 
debate  I  got  track  of  a  letter  written  by  John 
Quincy  Adams  to  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  in  which  I  understood  there 
was  an  extended  discussion  of  the  very  proposi 
tion  on  which  I  wished  to  take  my  stand.  At 
that  period  there  were  no  complete  records  made 
of  the  doings  of  Congress,  and  I  could  not  find 
the  letter.  I  took  my  problem  to  Mr.  Spofford, 
then  at  the  head  of  the  Congressional  Library, 


THE  REED  CONGRESS 

who,  after  several  weeks  of  search,  finally  dis 
covered  a  copy  of  the  letter  in  a  newspaper  of 
that  day.  It  was  a  valuable  document  in  its 
exposition  of  the  views  of  the  framers  of  the 
Constitution  regarding  the  taxing  powers  of 
the  government.  It  was  eagerly  accepted  as 
furnishing  high  authority  for  the  proposed  legis 
lation.  In  order  to  make  it  accessible  for  future 
use,  I  had  it  printed  as  an  appendix  to  my 
speech. 

Efforts  in  those  days  to  bring  about  con 
structive  reforms,  especially  if  they  struck 
at  concrete  evils,  met  with  the  bitterest  oppo 
sition,  as  indeed  they  do  to-day,  in  the  case,  for 
example,  of  so  reasonable  and  practical  a 
measure  as  that  which  provides  for  a  parcels- 
post. 

One  single  illustration  will  show  the  difficul 
ties  that  beset  any  man  in  Congress  who  tries 
honestly  to  press  a  constructive  reform  against 
the  power  of  private  interests. 

Henry  Clay  Evans  of  Tennessee  was  a  friend 
of  mine.  He  was  formerly  from  Wisconsin,  and 
in  the  convention  in  1896,  at  St.  Louis,  I  seconded 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  123 

his  nomination  for  the  vice-presidency.  At  that 
time  Vilas  of  Wisconsin  was  Postmaster-General 
in  Cleveland's  cabinet.  One  of  the  first  reforms 
he  urged  was  against  the  excessive  rental  charge 
of  railroad  companies  for  postal  cars.  After  a 
thorough  investigation  he  showed  that  for  the 
rental  which  it  paid  annually  the  government 
could  actually  build  outright,  equip,  and  keep 
in  repair  all  the  cars  it  used  —  and  then  save 
$500,000  a  year. 

Evans  had  been  appointed  to  the  House  Com 
mittee  on  Post  Offices  and  Post  Roads,  and  when 
he  got  hold  of  Vilas'  report  it  amazed  him  —  as 
it  would  amaze  any  one  not  connected  with  a 
railroad  company.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he 
had  only  to  make  these  facts  known  in  order  to 
have  the  abuse  corrected.  He  came  to  me  and 
said  very  earnestly: 

'  "I  am  going  to  get  a  provision  adopted  by 
the  committee  to  stop  this  abuse  and  ^ecure  an 
appropriation  sufficient  to  enable  the  govern 
ment  to  build  its  own  mail  cars." 

It  seemed  the  sensible,  honest  thing  to  do.  I 
encouraged  him  and  told  him  that,  if  he  could 


124  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

get  the  matter  before  the  House,  I  would  help 
him. 

A  few  weeks  later  he  gave  me  the  result  of 
his  effort  in  committee: 

"I  put  that  thing  up  to  the  committee,"  he 
said,  "with  a  good  plain  statement  which  should 
have  convinced  any  man,  and  I  couldn't  even 
get  a  vote  in  support  of  the  proposition." 

If  he  had  tried  to  get  it  upon  the  floor  of  the 
House  there  would  not  have  been  a  corporal's 
guard  to  sustain  him.  The  railroad  lobby  out 
side  and  the  railroad  members  inside  would  have 
prevented  any  action. 

Seventeen  years  after wrard,  when  I  came  to 
the  Senate,  I  looked  this  matter  up  and  there 
was  the  same  old  abuse.  During  all  those  years 
the  government  had  been  paying  enough  rental 
every  year  to  the  railroads  to  buy  the  cars  out 
right.  I  took  up  the  old  Vilas  report,  interested 
Victor  Murdock  of  Kansas,  then  on  the  House 
Committee  on  Post  Offices,  and  attempted  to 
get  something  done.  Murdock  encountered 
the  same  opposition  that  defeated  Evans  years 
before  —  he  could  accomplish  nothing.  But 


THE  REED  CONGRESS 

when  the  Post  Office  appropriation  bill  came 
over  to  the  Senate,  I  offered  an  amendment 
providing  for  an  investigation  in  order  to  bring 
the  Vilas  data  down  to  date.  I  believe  that 
legislation  should  always  be  preceded  by  accu 
rate  information.  I  knew  that  my  proposal  was 
subject  to  a  point  of  order  as  an  amendment  to 
an  appropriation  bill,  but  it  was  so  manifestly 
right  and  in  the  public  interest  that  I  hoped  the 
point  would  not  be  insisted  upon.  But  no! 
Penrose  raised  the  point  of  order  and  the  inves 
tigation  was  denied. 

The  next  year,  when  Penrose  got  the  Post 
Office  appropriation  bill  up,  I  was  in  a  stronger 
position.  For  some  reason  he  wanted  it  passed 
that  day.  But  I  stood  in  its  path  with  my 
amendment  and  the  power  of  unlimited  debate. 
He  suggested  that  if  the  Senator  from  Wiscon 
sin  would  not  press  the  matter  at  that  time  but 
would  offer  his  amendment  later  and  indepen 
dently,  that  he  (Penrose)  would  promise  to  have 
it  reported  back  favorably  from  the  committee 
and  help  in  passing  it.  I  promptly  accepted 
his  proposition,  but  Penrose  went  away  and  did 


126  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

not  return  until  so  near  the  end  of  the  session 
that  when  I  went  to  him  he  said  he  could  not 
get  his  committee  together  —  so  I  lost  out  again. 

At  the  next  session  I  began  earlier,  and  got  a 
resolution  through  the  Senate  w^hich  provided 
for  an  investigation  by  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission.  This  investigation  has  been  made 
and  reported  —  and  at  another  session  we  are 
going  at  it  again ! 

During  those  years  in  the  eighties,  while  I 
was  in  Congress,  the  lines  between  the  Pro 
gressive  and  stand-pat  elements  were  already 
beginning  to  appear.  The  alignment  of  forces 
was  not  so  clear  to  me  then  as  it  is  now,  but  I 
knew  well  enough  where  the  leaders  stood. 
Reed  always  used  his  great  powers  in  defending 
f»  the  existing  system.  He  sneered  at  those  who 
desired  new  legislation.  He  closed  one  of  his 
speeches  with  these  words: 

"And  yet,  outside  the  Patent  Office  there  are 
no  monopolies  in  this  country,  and  there  never 
can  be.  Ah,  but  what  is  that  I  see  on  the  far 
horizon's  edge,  with  tongue  of  lambent  flame 
and  eye  of  forked  fire,  serpent-headed  and 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  127 

griffin-clawed?  Surely  it  must  be  the  great 
new  chimera  'Trust.'  .  .  .  What  unrea 
sonable  talk  this  is.  A  dozen  men  fix  the 
prices  for  sixty  million  freemen!  They  can 
never  do  it!  There  is  no  power  on  earth  that 
can  raise  the  price  of  any  necessity  of  life  above 
a  just  price  and  keep  it  there.  More  than  that, 
if  the  price  is  raised  and  maintained  even  for 
a  short  while,  it  means  ruin  for  the  combination 
and  still  lower  prices  for  the  consumers." 

Reed  had  no  sympathy  with  the  Interstate 
Commerce  bill,  and  voted  against  it. 

I  always  felt  that  McKinley  represented  the 
newer  view.  Of  course,  McKinley  was  a  high 
protectionist,  but  on  the  great  new  questions 
as  they  arose  he  was  generally  on  the  side  of 
the  public  and  against  private  interests. 

And  this  the  people  instinctively  sensed.  In 
my  own  State  of  Wisconsin,  during  the  campaign 
for  the  Republican  nomination  in  1896,  I  was 
strongly  for  McKinley,  but  the  old  machine 
leaders,  Payne,  Sawyer,  Spooner,  Pfister,  and 
Keyes,  all  worked  vigorously  for  Reed.  Reed 
had  Big  Business  with  him;  but  the  sentiment 


128  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

in  the  state  was  too  strong  for  the  bosses.  The 
Wisconsin  delegation  to  the  St.  Louis  conven 
tion,  of  which  I  had  been  elected  as  an  anti- 
machine  member,  was  instructed  for  and  stood 
solid  for  McKinley. 

I  am  saying  this  notwithstanding  McKinley 's 
relationships  with  Mark  Hanna.  The  chief 
incentive  behind  Hanna's  support  of  McKinley, 
I  am  convinced,  was  the  honest  love  he  felt  for 
his  friend.  McKinley  inspired  affection  of  that 
sort.  And  Hanna,  having  come  largely  into 
control  of  the  Republican  organization  through 
his  genius  as  a  leader  and  through  the  enormous 
expenditure  of  money,  tried  to  bring  all  the 
elements  together  in  harmony.  The  first  and 
only  time  I  ever  met  him  was  at  the  St.  Louis 
convention.  He  requested  me  to  come  and 
see  him.  He  was  extremely  cordial,  almost 
affectionate.  I  remember  he  put  his  arm 
around  me  and  told  me  of  his  relations  with 
McKinley.  He  told  me  —  and  this  was  the 
object  of  the  meeting  —  that  he  felt  sure  that 
McKinley  would  like  to  see  Payne  on  the 
National  Committee  from  Wisconsin.  He  under- 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  129 

stood,  he  said,  that  I  was  making  a  fight  on 
Payne,  but  hoped  that  in  the  interest  of  harmony 
I  would  stand  for  Payne's  selection.  I  told 
him  very  earnestly  about  our  struggle  in  Wis 
consin,  that  a  great  movement  had  started  there 
which  could  not  be  arrested  or  diverted,  that 
Payne  and  his  associates  stood  for  the  destruc 
tion  of  representative  government,  and  that  we 
could  make  no  truce  with  them.  Mr.  Hanna's 
manner  changed  abruptly,  and  the  interview 
terminated. 

I  know  of  my  own  knowledge  that  McKinley 
stood  against  many  of  the  corrupt  influences 
within  his  own  party  —  that  he  even  stood 
firmly  against  the  demands  of  his  best  friend, 
Hanna. 

McKinley  had  no  sooner  been  elected  than 
the  Wisconsin  machine,  backed  strongly  by 
Hanna,  demanded  the  appointment  of  Henry 
C.  Payne  as  Postmaster-General.  And  I  with 
others  brought  forward  the  name  of  Governor 
Hoard  of  Wisconsin  as  candidate  for  Secretary 
of  Agriculture.  A  few  weeks  before  McKinley's 
inauguration,  upon  his  invitation,  I  went  to 


130  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

Canton  to  see  him.  When  I  called  about  ten 
o'clock  he  told  his  secretary  that  he  would  not 
see  anybody  else  before  five  that  afternoon.  We 
drove  about  town  and  visited  his  mother,  a 
beautiful  old  lady.  We  had  luncheon  at  his 
house.  We  discussed  at  length  the  appoint 
ment  of  Payne  and  Hoard  to  the  cabinet.  I 
explained  to  him  what  forces  Payne  represented 
in  Wisconsin,  and  indeed  he  had  already  known 
Payne's  work  as  a  lobbyist  in  Washington  in 
connection  especially  with  beef  trust  matters, 
and  I  knew  he  abominated  that  sort  of  thing. 
But  he  told  me  that  lie  believed  no  other  man 
had  ever  been  so  strongly  endorsed  by  promi 
nent  influential  politicians  in  every  part  of  the 
country  as  was  Payne  for  that  appointment. 
When  it  was  nearly  time  for  me  to  go  McKinley 
said: 

"Bob,  I  may  not  be  able  to  appoint  Hoard, 
but  I  will  say  to  you  that  Henry  Payne  shall  not 
be  a  member  of  my  cabinet." 

When  I  saw  McKinley  at  the  White  House  in 
the  following  winter,  he  told  me  how  the  effort 
to  secure  Payne's  appointment  had  culminated. 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  131 

He  said  that  Hanna  had  come  to  him  just  before 
his  final  decision  was  made  and  said:  "You  may 
wipe  out  every  obligation  that  you  feel  toward 
me,  and  I'll  ask  no  further  favors  of  you,  if  you'll 
only  put  Henry  Payne  in  the  cabinet." 

McKinley 's  answer  was:  "Mark,  I  would  do 
anything  in  the  world  I  could  for  you,  but  I 
cannot  put  a  man  in  my  cabinet  who  is  known 
as  a  lobbyist." 

And  he  kept  his  word. 

McKinley  did  not  fully  appreciate  the  new 
currents  then  entering  our  public  life.  He  was 
a  leader  in  the  old  business  school  of  politics 
which  regarded  material  prosperity  as  the  chief 
end  of  all  government.  But  he  was  a  consist 
ently  honest  man  throughout.  To  illustrate: 

It  was  during  his  administration  that  exten 
sive  frauds  were  discovered  in  the  Post  Office 
Department  and  in  the  Department  of  Posts  of 
Cuba.  Senator  Bristow  of  Kansas  was  then 
the  Fourth  Assistant  Postmaster-General.  He  is 
a  born  investigator,  able,  original,  fearless. 
McKinley,  when  he  realized  the  gravity  of  the 
frauds,  sent  for  Bristow  and  told  him  he  had 


132  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

selected  him  to  go  to  Cuba  and  make  a  thorough 
investigation  and  clean  out  any  corruption  that 
might  be  found  there. 

"  I  am  willing  to  go,  Mr.  President,"  said 
Bristow,  "but  before  going  I  want  to  call  your 
attention  to  the  fact  that  every  appointee  in 
Cuba  who  has  been  accused  of  wrong-doing  has 
been  sent  there  upon  the  recommendation  of 
members  of  Congress,  Senators,  or  men  influen 
tial  in  the  Republican  party.  When  it  becomes 
necessary  for  me  to  arrest  or  remove  from  office 
any  of  these  men,  they  will  at  once  complain 
to  their  friends  in  the  states  and  you  will  be 
bombarded  with  complaints  as  to  my  conduct. 
All  I  ask  is  that  you  withhold  judgment  until 
you  hear  my  side  of  the  case." 

McKinley  said:  "Mr.  Bristow,  I  "under 
stand  just  how  difficult  a  task  I  have  assigned 
to  you.  But  go  ahead,  do  what  is  right,  be 
cautious,  but  firm,  and  shield  no  man  who  has 
been  guilty  of  wrong-doing.  As  to  the  com 
plaints,  leave  them  to  me;  I  will  take  care  of 
them." 

Bristow  did  go  ahead  and  ran  his  game  to 


THE  REED  CONGRESS  133 

cover,  and  when  Hanna  and  other  Senators  and 
Congressmen  protested  he  told  them  that  the 
Cuban  postal  service  was  infested  with  a 
gang  of  thieves  and  that  he  was  simply  doing 
his  duty  and  proposed  to  keep  it  up.  Then 
they  went  to  the  White  House  and  McKinley 
told  them  that  Bristow  was  acting  on  his  orders. 
He  stood  unwaveringly  by  Bristow  against  the 
persistent  importunity  of  many  of  his  most 
intimate  political  advisers. 

I  never  felt  that  McKinley  had  a  fair  chance. 
His  first  term  was  broken  into  by  the  Spanish 
War.  His  second  was  cut  off  at  the  very  begin 
ning  by  assassination.  He  had  no  opportunity 
to  develop  his  carefully  wrought-out  plans  for 
large  trade  extension.  He  had  rare  tact  as  a 
manager  of  men.  Back  of  his  courteous  and 
affable  manner  was  a  firmness  that  never  yielded 
conviction,  and  while  scarcely  seeming  to  force  is 
sues  he  usually  achieved  exactly  what  he  sought. 

In  the  fall  of  1890  I  was  a  candidate  for  a 
fourth  term  in  Congress.  I  was  so  confident 
of  reelection  that  I  spent  much  time  campaign 
ing  in  other  parts  of  Wisconsin  and  in  speaking 


134  THE  REED  CONGRESS 

in  Iowa  and  elsewhere.  But  serious  complica 
tions  had  arisen  in  Wisconsin  politics:  an  act 
known  as  the  Bennett  law  had  been  passed  by 
the  preceding  legislature  which  the  very  large 
Lutheran  and  Roman  Catholic  element  in  the 
state  believed  to  be  a  blow  at  their  parochial 
school  systems,  and  there  was  a  wholesale  cut 
ting  of  the  Republican  ticket.  Combined  with 
this  the  machine  leaders  in  Wisconsin  came  into 
my  district  while  I  was  absent  speaking  for 
candidates  in  other  parts  of  the  state,  and 
secretly  used  all  their  power  against  me  and  in 
favor  of  the  Democratic  candidate.  The  result 
AVSLS  that  although  I  ran  seven  hundred  votes 
ahead  of  my  ticket,  I  was  defeated.  The  whole 
state  went  heavily  Democratic.  Every  Repub 
lican  Congressman  save  one  lost  his  seat. 

Thus  I  was  returned  to  private  life  and  to 
my  law  practice;  but  it  was  not  long  before  I 
began  the  fifteen  years'  struggle  with  the  machine 
in  Wisconsin  which  finally  resulted  in  its  complete 
overthrow. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    CRUCIAL   PERIOD    OF   MY    PUBLIC   LITE 

IT  WOULD  be  idle  to  say  that  the  termina 
tion  of  my  career  as  a  Congressman  in 
March,  1891,  was  not  a  bitter  disappoint 
ment  to  me.  It  was.  I  had  not  made  a  great 
many  speeches  in  the  six  years  of  my  service, 
but  when  I  did  enter  the  debates  it  was  with 
careful  preparation;  and  I  think  I  may  fairly 
say  that  I  had  attained  to  such  a  position  as 
warranted  me  in  looking  forward  to  a  career  of 
some  distinction  had  I  been  permitted  to  remain 
in  the  House.  So  the  defeat  came  to  me  as  a 
severe  blow.  But  I  had  acquired  a  very  valu 
able  experience  in  my  public  service  and  formed 
delightful  and  valuable  acquaintances.  I  had 
been  in  contact  writh  the  strong  men  of  the  coun 
try,  and  as  a  result  had,  I  think,  grown  in  char 
acter  and  power. 

135 


136  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

I  was  but  thirty-five  years  of  age,  and  went 
back  with  firm  resolutions  and  good  cheer  to 
my  law  practice  at  Madison,  Wisconsin.  I  was 
poor,  and  the  expenses  attendant  upon  readjust 
ment  to  the  new  life  were  matters  of  conse 
quence.  These  matters  were  discussed  from 
time  to  time  by  Mrs.  La  Toilette  and  myself. 
Our  little  daughter,  Fola,  very  much  impressed 
with  frequently  hearing  these  talks,  came  one 
day  to  her  mother,  and  having  in  mind  my 
recent  failure  of  reelection,  said,  "Mama,  will 
papa  have  to  be  elected  before  he  can  practise 
law  and  earn  some  money?" 

I  found  that  my  public  service,  while  it  had 
been  a  serious  interruption  to  my  professional 
life,  had  extended  my  reputation  materially  and 
tended  to  draw  to  me  a  very  substantial  client 
age.  Any  thought  I  had  of  returning  to  the 
public  service  was  vague  and  remote.  That  I 
should  continue  to  be  interested  in  public  ques 
tions  and  in  matters  political  was  inevitable.  I 
knew  that  issues  of  great  importance  affecting 
the  lives  and  homes  of  all  the  people  of  the  coun 
try  wrere  coming  rapidly  forward.  I  had  fol- 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  137 

lowed  the  great  debate  in  the  Senate  and  House 
on  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law,  had  taken  part 
in  the  debate  in  the  House  on  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Law,  had  seen  the  manifestations  of 
corporate  power  in  the  halls  of  Congress.  I  rec 
ognized,  in  a  way,  the  evidences  of  the  oncom 
ing  struggle.  I  had  come  to  understand  the 
power  of  Sawyer,  Payne,  and  a  few  other  promi 
nent  Republican  politicians,  closely  associated 
with  railroads  and  other  corporate  interests  in 
national  and  state  legislation.  I  was  convinced 
that  Payne  had  not  been  seriously  disappointed 
with  my  defeat;  that,  in  fact,  wherever  he  could 
exert  any  influence  against  my  political  success, 
without  leaving  a  trail  as  broad  as  a  highway,  he 
had  for  some  time  lost  no  opportunity  of  doing 
so. 

Not  so  with  Sawyer.  I  had  disappointed  him 
again  and  again  in  my  course  upon  legislation. 
But  he  was  a  loyal  party  man  and  believed  in 
supporting  party  candidates  regardless  of  per 
sonal  feeling.  Furthermore,  as  I  have  said  be 
fore,  I  always  believed  that  Sawyer  did  not 
violate  his  standard  of  political  ethics  in  his 


138  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

course  upon  legislation.  Like  many  politicians 
he  regarded  Congress  as  a  useful  agency  for  the 
promotion  of  business  enterprises  in  which  he 
and  his  friends  were  identified  or  interested.  If 
a  man  did  not  accept  his  point  of  view,  he  would 
argue  the  matter  in  a  blunt,  frank,  simple  wray 
without  any  display  of  feeling.  The  only  time  I 
remember  to  have  seen  Senator  Sawyer  manifest 
the  least  show  of  temper  was  on  the  floor  of  the 
House  in  connection  with  the  ship  subsidy  meas 
ure,  which  I  have  already  reviewed.  While  I 
understood  Senator  Sawyer,  I  think  rightly,  and 
knew  that  our  standards  were  not  the  same  and 
that  we  would  always  differ  on  questions  where 
there  was  a  conflict  between  corporate  and  public 
interests,  yet  I  did  not  entertain  any  personal 
ill  will  toward  him,  and  I  am  sure  that  he  then 
entertained  no  feeling  of  personal  hostility  to 
me. 

I  might,  therefore,  have  gone  forward  with  my 
law  practice  quite  contentedly  had  it  not  been 
for  an  event  which  soon  took  place  and  changed 
my  whole  life.  I  shall  deal  with  this  event  con 
siderably  at  length  because  it  was  not  only  all- 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  139 

powerful  in  its  effect  upon  me  personally,  but  it 
will  reveal  to  what  lengths  corrupt  politicians 
are  prepared  to  go.  I  had,  of  course,  seen  that 
sooner  or  later  a  conflict  with  the  old  leaders 
was  inevitable;  the  people  were  already  restive 
against  the  private  interest  view  of  government, 
but  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  incident  to  which 
I  refer  —  which  brought  the  whole  system  home 
to  me  personally  in  its  ugliest  and  most  revolting 
form  —  I  should  not  so  soon  have  been  forced 
into  the  fight. 

One  of  the  political  grafts  of  Wisconsin,  an 
cient  and  time  honored,  was  the  farming  out  of 
the  public  funds  to  favored  banks.  Excepting 
the  office  of  governor,  the  state  treasuryship 
was  more  sought  after  than  any  other  place  on 
the  ticket.  The  reason  for  this  lay  in  the  fact 
that  the  state  treasurer  was  able  to  deposit  pub 
lic  moneys  in  such  banks  as  he  chose,  upon  terms 
satisfactory  to  the  bankers  and  profitable  to 
himself.  Interest  upon  this  money  was  regarded 
as  a  political  perquisite. 

One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  Democratic  state 
administration  which  came  in  on  January  5, 


140  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

1891,  was  to  institute  suit  against  all  state 
treasurers  of  Wisconsin  who  had  occupied  that 
office  during  the  preceding  twenty  years.  The 
Wisconsin  Treasury  cases  became  noted  as 
pioneer  cases  for  the  enforcement  of  the  correct 
principle  in  the  discharge  of  duty  regarding  the 
custody  of  trust  funds.  The  beginning  of  these 
cases  produced  a  profound  sensation  in  the 
state  and  attracted  much  attention  throughout 
the  nation.  Suits  were  instituted  against  for 
mer  Treasurers  Henry  B.  Harshaw,  Edward  C. 
McFettridge,  Richard  Guenther,  Ferdinand 
Kuehn,  Henry  Betz  and  their  bondsmen.  Sen 
ator  Sawyer's  wishes  had  largely  controlled  in 
the  selection  of  several  of  these  treasurers,  and 
he  was  one  of  the  principal  bondsmen.  Certain 
of  the  treasurers  had  little  or  no  property  to 
satisfy  judgments  of  large  amounts.  Hence, 
Sawyer,  as  the  wealthiest  of  all  the  bondsmen, 
stood  to  lose  a  large  sum  of  money  in  the  event 
of  the  state's  recovery.  The  suits  finally  re 
sulted  in  judgments  in  favor  of  the  state  aggre 
gating  $608,918.23.  Of  this  amount  Sawyer  was 
liable  for  nearly  $300,000.00.  The  estate  of 


JUDGE    ROBERT    G.    SIEBECKER 

"My  brother-in-law  and  my  partner  in  the  firm  of  La  Follette,  Sie- 
becker  &  Harper." 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  141 

Guido  Pfister,  a  leading  business  man  of  Mil 
waukee,  was  also  liable  as  bondsman  for  former 
Treasurer  Kuehn  to  the  extent  of  something 
more  than  one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The 
liability  of  this  estate  marks  the  advent  into 
Wisconsin  state  politics  of  Charles  F.  Pfister 
of  Milwaukee,  one  of  the  principal  heirs  of  the 
Guido  Pfister  estate,  who  will  figure  hereafter  in 
this  narrative. 

The  ex-treasurers  and  their  bondsmen  em 
ployed  a  strong  array  of  excellent  counsel,  among 
others  S.  U.  Pinney,  afterward  Supreme  Court 
Justice,  and  Joseph  V.  Quarles,  afterward 
United  States  Senator.  The  state  retained  as 
counsel  to  assist  Attorney -General  O' Conner, 
Col.  William  F.  Vilas,  former  member  of  Cleve 
land's  cabinet,  afterward  United  States  Senator, 
and  R.  M.  Bashford,  afterward  Supreme  Court 
Justice. 

Robert  G.  Siebecker,  now  one  of  the  justices 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Wisconsin,  was  at  that 
time  judge  of  the  Circuit  Court  for  Dane  County. 
He  had  been  appointed  to  that  office  by  Gover 
nor  Hoard  in  1889  to  fill  a  vacancy,  and  a  tele- 


142  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

gram  from  Governor  Hoard's  secretary  announ 
cing  Siebecker's  selection  was  my  first  intimation 
that  he  had  been  considered.  I  was  indeed  sur 
prised,  because  Siebecker  was  a  Democrat  and 
was  appointed  by  Governor  Hoard  to  succeed 
Judge  Stuart,  who  was  a  Republican.  I  men 
tion  this  point  in  this  connection  because  in  so 
far  as  the  appointment  was  criticized  at  all,  it 
was  upon  the  ground  that  Siebecker  was  a  Demo 
crat.  This  fact,  and  the  further  fact  that  he 
was  my  brother-in-law  and  my  partner  in  the 
firm  of  La  Follette,  Siebecker  &  Harper  was  also 
the  subject  of  newspaper  comment  at  the  time, 
and  his  appointment  was  ascribed  to  my 
known  friendly  relations  with  Governor  Hoard. 
I  have  taken  pains  to  state  these  facts  some 
what  in  detail  because  of  their  important  con 
nection  with  the  incident  which  I  am  about  to 
relate. 

Shortly  before  these  cases  were  to  come  on  for 
argument  in  the  Circuit  Court,  I  received  a  letter 
from  Senator  Sawyer,  whose  home  was  in  Osh- 
kosh,  Wisconsin,  of  which  the  following  is  an 
exact  copy: 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  143 

Dictated. 

Oshkosh$rWisconsin,  September  14,  1891. 
Hon.  Robert  M.  La  Follette,  Madison, Wisconsin. 
My  dear  La  Follette: 

I  will  be  in  Milwaukee,  at  the  state  fair,  on 
Thursday.  I  have  some  matters  of  importance 
that  I  would  like  to  consult  you  about,  that 
escaped  my  mind  yesterday.  If  convenient 
can  you  be  in  Milwaukee  on  that  day  and  meet 
me  at  the  Plankinton  House  at  11  o'clock  A.M.? 
If  not  on  that  day,  what  day  would  suit  your 
convenience  this  week?  Please  answer  by  tele 
graph.  All  you  need  to  say,  if  you  can  meet  me 
that  day  is  merely  telegraph  me  "yes."  If  not 
simply  mention  day  you  can  meet  me. 

Yours  truly,  PHILETUS  SAWYER. 

The  letter  was  typewritten  on  a  single  sheet 
of  paper,  letter  size.  The  top  part  of  the  sheet 
had  been  torn  off,  down  nearly  to  the  date  line, 
leaving  only  the  printed  words,  "  Dictated.  Osh- 
kosh."  This  fact  did  not  impress  me  at  the 
time  I  received  the  letter  but  led  me  to  investi 
gate  the  matter  later  and  to  discover  that  it  was 
written  on  the  office  stationery  of  ex-Treasurer 
Harshaw,  who  afterward  came  to  me  with  a 
message  from  Sawyer.  The  reference  to  his 
having  seen  me  the  day  before  it  was  written, 


144  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

related  to  our  meeting  on  the  13th  of 
September  at  Neenah,  Wisconsin,  on  the  occa 
sion  of  the  funeral  of  former  Congressman 
Charles  B.  Clark.  During  the  services  and  after 
ward,  until  Mr.  Sawyer  left  to  take  his  train, 
other  people  had  been  constantly  with  us,  so 
that  Sawyer  had  had  no  opportunity  for  any 
private  conversation  with  me. 

I  conferred  with  my  law  partner,  Sam  Harper, 
after  receiving  the  letter,  and  believing  that  the 
proposed  interview  concerned  political  matters, 
decided  to  meet  Sawyer.  I  remember  that  the 
brief  nature  of  the  response  which  he  requested 
to  the  letter  impressed  me  as  a  precaution  taken 
to  forestall  newspaper  interviewers.  And  I 
filed  a  telegram  in  response,  limited  to  the  word 
"yes"  as  directed. 

On  the  17th  of  September  I  went  to  Milwau 
kee  and  met  Sawyer  at  the  Plankinton  House. 
The  state  fair  was  in  progress  at  that  time  and 
the  hotel  crowded.  Sawyer  said  that  he  had 
been  unable  to  secure  a  room  and  requested  me 
to  go  with  him  to  the  hotel  parlors  on  the  second 
floor.  The  parlors  were  large,  and  he  led  me 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  145 

away  to  a  portion  of  the  room  remote  from  the 
entrance  —  where  we  sat  down.  After  some 
preliminary  conversation  in  which  he  said,  "I 
wanted  to  talk  with  you  about  Siebecker  and 
the  treasury  matter,"  he  finally  came  directly  to 
the  point  and  said: 

"These  cases  are  awfully  important  to  us,  and 
we  cannot  afford  to  lose  them.  They  cost  me  a 
lot  of  anxiety.  I  don't  want  to  have  to  pay 

"  naming  a  large  sum  of  money  —  whether 

one  hundred  thousand  or  more,  I  am  not  certain. 
"Now  I  came  down  here  to  see  you  alone.  No 
one  knows  I  am  to  meet  you  here.  I  don't  want 
to  hire  you  as  an  attorney  in  the  cases,  La  Fol- 
lette,  and  don't  want  you  to  go  into  court.  But 
here  is  fifty  dollars,  I  will  give  you  five  hundred 
more  or  a  thousand  —  or  five  hundred  more 
and  a  thousand  (I  was  never  able  to  recall  ex 
actly  the  sums  named)  when  Siebecker  decides' 
the  cases  right." 

I  said  to  him,  "Senator  Sawyer,  you  can't 
know  what  you  are  saying  to  me.  If  you  struck 
me  in  the  face  you  could  not  insult  me  as  you 
insult  me  now." 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

said,  "Wait  —  hold  on!" 

I  was  then  standing  up.  I  said:  "No,  you 
don't  want  to  employ  me  as  an  attorney.  You 
want  to  hire  me  to  talk  to  the  Judge  about  your 
case  off  the  Bench/'  He  said,  "I  did  not  think 
you  would  take  a  retainer  in  the  case.  I  did  not 
think  you  would  want  to  go  into  the  case  as  an 
attorney.  How  much  will  you  take  as  a  re 
tainer?" 

I  answered,  "You  haven't  enough  money  to 
employ  me  as  an  attorney  in  your  case  after 
what  you  have  said  to  me." 

"Well,  perhaps  I  don't  understand  court 
rules.  Anyway,  let  me  pay  you  for  coming 
down  here." 

I  said,  "Not  a  dollar,  sir,"  and  immediately 
left  the  room. 

Nothing  else  ever  came  into  my  life  that  ex 
erted  such  a  powerful  influence  upon  me  as  that 
affair.  It  was  the  turning  point,  in  a  way,  of 
my  career.  Sooner  or  later  I  probably  would 
have  done  what  I  did  in  Wisconsin.  But  it 
would  have  been  later.  It  would  have  been  a 
matter  of  much  slower  evolution.  But  it 


V  left 

V:* 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  147 

shocked  me  into  a  complete  realization  of  the 
extremes  to  which  this  power  that  Sawyer  rep 
resented  would  go  to  secure  the  results  it  was 
after.  But  in  another  way  its  effect  upon  me 
as  an  individual  was  most  profound.  I  had 
always  had  a  pride  in  my  family  —  in  my  good 
name.  It  had  been  the  one  thing  that  my 
mother  had  worked  into  my  character.  It  was 
the  thing  that  she  emphasized  when  she  talked 
with  me  about  my  father,  whom  I  never  saw. 
One  who  has  never  been  subject  to  an  experience 
like  that  cannot  realize  just  wrhat  comes  over  him. 
There  has  always  been  uncertainty  in  my  mind 
about  the  money  he  offered  me  —  the  amounts. 
He  named  different  amounts.  He  was  going  to 
give  me  a  sum  right  then,  and  more,  conditioned 
upon  the  case  being  decided  "right."  He  had 
his  pocketbook  in  one  hand,  and  a  roll  of  money 
in  the  other.  For  an  instant  I  was  dazed,  and 
then  the  thing  surged  through  me.  I  felt  that 
liquid  not  keep  my  hands  off  his  throat  — I 
stood  over  him,  said  the  things  to  him  that  I 
have  related  and  then  left  him,  blindly.  I  knew 
he  followed  me.  I  went  rapidly  downstairs,  and 


148  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

out  of  the  hotel.  The  state  fair  was  on,  and  the 
hotel  lobby  crowded  with  people.  I  sawr  nobody. 
I  got  out  in  the  street  and  walked  and  walked. 

Six  or  eight  years  afterward,  when  I  wras  a 
candidate  for  governor,  I  stopped  one  day  in  the 
little  town  of  Sheboygan  Falls.  Among  those  who 
called  on  me  was  former  Congressman  Brickner. 
He  had  been  on  the  Democratic  side  when  I  was 
on  the  Republican  side  of  the  House.  He  came 
into  the  hotel  to  greet  me  and  while  he  was  sit 
ting  there  he  brought  up  the  Sawyer  affair.  The 
state,  of  course,  had  been  aflame  after  the  inter 
view  had  been  published.  Sawyer's  power  over 
the  Republican  press  of  the  state  was  very  great, 
and  it  was  all  turned  against  me.  I  was  de 
nounced  as  a  liar  and  assassin  of  character,  try 
ing  to  destroy  one  of  the  great  and  good  men  of 
the  state.  Brickner  said,  "Mr.  La  Follette,  I 
knew  which  one  of  you  two  told  the  truth  about 
what  took  place  in  the  Plankinton  Hotel  that 
day.  I  saw  your  face  when  you  came  down  the 
stairs,  with  Sawyer  following  trying  to  catch  up 
with  you.  I  knew  that  there  had  been  serious 
trouble." 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  149 

After  the  interview  with  Sawyer  at  the  Plank- 
inton  Hotel  that  day  I  disclosed  what  had  tran 
spired  between  him  and  me  to  a  few  close  per 
sonal  friends  and  told  them  I  thought  it  my 
plain  duty  to  report  the  matter  to  the  Court. 
Several  of  them  took  strong  ground  against  this 
course.  They  pointed  out  the  great  power  of 
Senator  Sawyer,  his  corporation  and  political 
connections,  his  control  of  newspapers;  they 
argued  that  he  would  utterly  destroy  me.  I 
granted  all  that,  but  urged  that  as  a  member  of 
the  bar,  an  officer  of  the  Court,  I  could  not  be 
silent;  that  it  was  my  duty  to  report  to  Judge 
Siebecker  exactly  what  had  occurred.  Confer 
ences  of  these  friends  were  held  from  time  to 
time,  they  urging  'their  view  and  I  contending 
that  my  course,  though  the  harder  one,  must  be 
followed. 

It  was  finally  agreed  that  the  whole  matter  be 
submitted  to  Judge  Romanzo  Bunn,  the  federal 
judge  for  the  Western  District  of  Wisconsin, 
whose  home  was  in  Madison,  and  who  enjoyed 
the  confidence  and  esteem  of  all  who  knew  him. 
I  remember  the  afternoon  when  I  saw  him  by 


150  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

appointment  at  his  chambers  in  the  federal  build 
ing  in  Madison.  He  listened  with  patience  and 
understanding,  his  benign  face  expressing  the 
utmost  pain  and  sympathy.  He  did  not  speak 
until  I  had  finished.  Then  he  said, 

"Robert,  have  you  told  Judge  Siebecker?" 

"No,"  I  answered.  "And  on  the  advice  of  a 
few  friends  I  came  to  tell  you  about  it  and  to  ask 
your  counsel." 

He  said,  "Well,  you  must  tellMudge  Siebecker. 
You  cannot  permit  him  to  sit  in  the  case  without 
telling  him  all  about  it.  I  doubt  very  much 
whether  he  will  feel  that  he  can  try  the  cases. 
That  is  for  him  to  decide  —  but  you  must  tell 
him." 

I  said  to  him,  "Judge  Bunn,  I  have  insisted 
from  the  first  that  it  was  my  duty  to  tell  Judge 
Siebecker,  but  my  friends  have  strongly  urged 
against  that  course,  because  they  realize  that 
Sawyer  will  follow  me  relentlessly  as  long  as  he 
lives.  I  understand  that  well,  for  this  thing 
has  weighed  on  me  every  hour  since  it  occurred." 

On  the  evening  of  the  same  day  on  which  I 
saw  Judge  Bunn,  in  the  privacy  of  Judge  Sie- 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  151 

becker's  home  I  told  him  exactly  what  had 
taken  place.  He  was  very  much  moved.  He 
decided  immediately,  of  course,  that,  with  the 
knowledge  of  Sawyer's  attempt  to  corrupt  the 
Court,  he  could  not  sit  as  judge  in  the  cases.  He 
said  that  if  he  caused  Sawyer  to  be  cited  for  con 
tempt,  the  facts  would  necessarily  become  public 
with  the  result  that  it  would  prejudice  the  cases. 
So  far  as  either  of  us  knew,  many  of  the  defend 
ants  probably  wrere  ignorant  of  Sawyer's  action. 
At  any  rate,  it  was  important  that  they  be  given 
a  fair  and  impartial  trial.  Before  I  left  him  he 
had  determined  that  he  would  promptly  call 
together  the  attorneys  on  both  sides,  tell  them 
that  he  would  not  hear  the  cases  for  reasons 
which  were  controlling  with  him,  but  that  he 
would  call  in  any  other  circuit  judge  in  the  state 
upon  whom  they  agreed.  Siebecker  was  then 
a  young  man  —  he  had  been  on  the  Bench  two 
years  and  was  making  an  excellent  record  as 
judge.  These  cases  were  certain  to  be  important, 
and  if  he  rendered  a  judgment  which  should 
ultimately  be  sustained  by  the  Supreme  Court, 
it  would  make  a  record  in  which  any  trial  court 


152  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

could  take  just  pride,  and  might  prove  an  im 
portant  factor  in  his  judicial  career.  Indeed,  it 
transpired  that  Judge  A.  W.  Newman,  who  was 
called  in  to  try  the  cases  after  Siebecker's  with 
drawal,  was  elected  to  fill  the  first  vacancy  upon 
the  Supreme  Bench  of  Wisconsin. 

I  think  it  was  on  Friday  that  Judge  Siebecker 
informed  the  attorneys  on  both  sides  that  he 
could  not  try  the  treasury  cases.  They  were 
amazed  at  his  announcement,  and  the  news 
quickly  spread.  The  cases  were  of  such  great 
public  interest,  involving  so  many  prominent 
men  and  such  large  sums  of  money,  that  the 
keenest  speculation  and  indeed  excitement  fol 
lowed  Siebecker's  withdrawal. 

By  the  following  day,  newspaper  correspond 
ents,  representing  the  principal  papers  of  the 
state  and  leading  dailies  of  Chicago,  were  rushed 
to  Madison,  keen  on  the  scent  for  sensational 
news.  Efforts  were  made  to  interview  Judge 
Siebecker.  And  because  of  my  relationship  with 
the  judge  and  my  interest  in  political  matters, 
every  possible  effort  was  made  to  extract  some 
thing  from  me;  but  I  did  not  regard  it  as  incum- 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  153 

bent  upon  me  to  make  any  public  statement. 
Unable  to  ascertain  any  facts,  a  lot  of  newspaper 
stories  were  predicated  upon  guesses  —  some 
wide  of  the  mark  and  some  shrewdly  direct  in 
their  shot  at  the  facts. 

On  Sunday  morning,  October  25,  1891,  the 
Chicago  Times  printed  a  sensational  story  with 
the  startling  query  as  to  whether  there  had  been 
an  attempt  made  to  "influence"  the  Court  in 
the  Wisconsin  Treasury  cases,  suggesting  that  if 
an  effort  had  really  been  made  to  influence  the 
Court,  causing  Siebecker's  withdrawal,  that  the 
guilty  party  was  known,  and  stood  in  the  shadow 
of  the  penitentiary.  Here  are  the  headings  from 
the  Chicago  Times: 

BRIBERY  THEIR  GAME 

PERSONS  INTERESTED  IN  THE  WISCONSIN  STATE  TREASURY 
SUITS  ATTEMPT  DESPERATE  MEANS. 

AN  EFFORT  MADE  TO  "  INFLUENCE  "  JUDGE  SIEBECKER,  OF 
MADISON,  WHO  WAS    TO  TRY  THE  CASES. 

THE   INDIGNANT    OFFICIAL   NOTIFIES    THE    LAWYERS    THAT 
HE   WILL   NOT   SIT    DURING   THE   TRIAL. 

HE   REFUSES    TO   AT    PRESENT   MAKE    PUBLIC   THE  DETAILS 
OF   THE   AFFAIR — STARTLING    DISCLOSURES    EXPECTED. 


154  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

From  what  followed  I  was  led  to  believe  that 
Senator  Sawyer  had  read  and  been  very  greatly 
alarmed  by  the  matter  published  in  the  Times. 
His  home  was  in  Oshkosh,  where  also  lived  former 
State  Treasurer  Harshaw.  Sunday  evening  I  was 
surprised  to  receive  a  note  from  Harshaw 
brought  to  me  by  a  bellboy  from  the  Park 
Hotel,  Madison.  The  note,  which  was  written 
on  the  hotel  stationery,  indicating  that  Harshaw 
was  then  in  Madison,  requested  an  interview  at 
my  law  office  on  the  following  morning  at  eight 
o'clock.  I  showed  it  to  my  law  partner,  Sam 
Harper,  who  happened  to  be  with  me  at  the  time. 
I  suggested  that  Harshaw  probably  desired  to 
see  me  regarding  the  Sawyer  matter;  that  as  no 
witnesses  were  present  when  Sawyer  made  his 
proposal  to  me  at  the  Plankinton  Hotel  in  Mil 
waukee,  the  time  might  come  when  the  question 
of  veracity  would  be  raised  between  us ;  that  Har 
shaw  's  proposed  interview  with  me  might  result 
in  some  disclosure  which  would  show  conclusively 
that  Sawyer  had  endeavored  to  corrupt  the 
Court;  and  that  I  would  consent  to  see  Harshaw 
if  he  (Harper)  would  be  present  at  the  interview. 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  155 

At  eight  o'clock  the  next  morning  Harshaw 
came  to  my  office,  accompanied  by  Joseph  V. 
Quarles,  afterward  United  States  Senator,  one 
of  the  attorneys  in  the  treasury  cases.  They 
were  shown  into  my  private  room.  After  formal 
greetings,  Mr.  Quarles  made  inquiry  about 
Judge  Siebecker  and  said  he  wanted  to  see  him. 
I  told  him  where  the  Judge  could  be  found  and 
he  thereupon  withdrew.  Harshaw  remained. 
As  Quarles  left  Sam  accompanied  him  to  the 
door  of  the  outer  office,  leaving  Harshaw  in  the 
private  office  with  me. 

The  moment  we  were  alone  Harshaw  leaned 
across  the  desk,  and  said  quickly: 

"Bob,  will  you  meet  Sawyer  at  the  Grand 
Pacific  Hotel  in  Chicago  to-night?" 

I  was  incensed  that  he  had  succeeded  in  com-  ] 
municating   to   me   privately   a   message   from/ 
Sawyer,  and  rising  to  my  feet  I  said  in  a  tone 
of  voice  which  immediately  brought  Sam  back 
into  the  room. 

"No,  I  will  never  meet  Sawyer  or  have  any 
communication  with  him  again  as  long  as  I 
live." 


156  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

I  was  determined  that  Harper  should  know 
exactly  what  Harshaw  had  said  to  me  during 
his  absence,  and  so  leaning  across  the  desk,  I 
repeated : 

:'You  have  just  asked  me  if  I  will  meet  Saw 
yer  to-night  at  the  Grand  Pacific  Hotel  in  Chi 
cago,  and  I  answer  you,  no,  so  long  as  I  live,  I  will 
never  again  meet  Sawyer  or  have  any  communi 
cation  with  him." 

Harshaw  put  up  his  hand  in  protest  and  said, 
"Don't,  Bob,  don't  be  angry  with  me.  I  have 
always  respected  you  and  always  shall." 

I  then  said  to  Harshaw  that  it  was  wrong  for 
him  to  come  to  me  with  any  such  proposal;  that 
he  knew  just  what  Sawyer  had  attempted  at  the 
Plankinton,  and  that  he  ought  to  have  known 
that  I  would  have  nothing  more  to  do  with 
Sawyer.  Harshaw  said,  "I  do  know  what  Saw 
yer  did;  but  had  I  known  beforehand  what  he 
intended  to  do  when  he  met  you  at  Milwaukee,  it 
never  would  have  occurred."  This  ended  the 
interview,  and  Harshaw  left  the  office. 

From  what  occurred  immediately  thereafter 
it  was  plain  that  Sawyer  was  then  in  Milwaukee 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  157 

awaiting  Harshaw's  return,  prepared  to  go  on  to 
Chicago  provided  I  consented  to  meet  him  at  the 
Grand  Pacific;  that  upon  Harshaw's  arrival  in 
Milwaukee  and  his  report  to  Sawyer  of  the  fail 
ure  of  his  mission,  he  (Sawyer)  then,  apprehen 
sive  that  the  truth  might  come  out,  decided  that 
he  would  forestall  any  possible  statement  which 
I  might  make.  Up  to  that  time  no  public 
charge  had  been  made  connecting  Sawyer  with 
Judge  Siebecker's  retirement  from  the  treasury 
cases;  but  Sawyer  knew,  and  that  knowledge 
impelled  him  to  commit  the  folly  of  protesting 
his  innocence  in  advance  of  any  public  charge  of 
guilt.  On  that  same  (Monday)  evening  he  per 
sonally  gave  to  the  Sentinel,  in  Milwaukee,  an 
interview  in  which  he  stated  that  he  had  "tele 
graphed"  me  to  meet  him  at  the  Plankinton 
Hotel  in  Milwaukee;  that  he  had  offered  me  a 
retainer  of  five  hundred  dollars,  but  no  money 
was  paid;  that  I  thought  it  would  not  be  advis 
able  to  take  a  retainer,  as  Judge  Siebecker  was 
my  brother-in-law;  that  it  was  the  first  he  knew 
that  Siebecker  was  my  brother-in-law,  and  that 
had  he  known  that  fact  he  would  not  have  pro- 


158  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

posed  to  retain  me;  that  if  I  had  put  any  im 
proper  interpretation  upon  his  conversation 
with  me,  I  had  misunderstood  or  misconstrued 
what  he  said;  and  that  at  the  time  of  the  con 
versation  I  certainly  made  no  such  intimation 
to  him.  The  interview  with  Senator  Sawyer 
was  published  Tuesday  morning,  October  27th, 
1891. 

The  publication  of  Sawyer's  statement  wholly 
misrepresenting  the  facts  made  it  necessary  that 
I  should  make  public  the  truth  regarding  that 
interview,  and  in  the  Milwaukee  Sentinel  of 
Wednesday  morning,  October  28th,  in  a  signed 
statement,  I  set  forth  in  detail  just  what  actually 
did  occur  between  Senator  Sawyer  and  myself. 
I  requested  Judge  Siebecker's  sanction  to  speak, 
and  received  it.  I  did  not  point  out  the  weak 
ness  and  inconsistency  of  Sawyer's  statement; 
I  did  not  note  the  fact  that  he  could  not  be  igno 
rant  of  the  relation  existing  between  Siebecker 
and  myself,  which  everybody  knew,  and  which 
had  been  the  subject  of  public  discussion  and 
comment  when  Siebecker  was  appointed  circuit 
judge;  I  made  no  mention  of  the  fact  that  I  was 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  159 

constantly  practising  my  profession  in  Sie- 
becker's  court,  and  that  there  could  be  no  im 
propriety  in  my  accepting  a  retainer  had  it  been 
offered  upon  honorable  terms.  In  that  inter 
view  I  stated  only  the  naked  facts  required  to 
make  public  record  of  the  exact  truth. 

I  believed  I  fully  realized  what  this  would  cost 
me.  Sawyer  was  the  power  in  Wisconsin 
politics.  He  was  many  times  a  millionaire. 
His  wish  was  law  —  his  rule  unquestioned.  His 
organization  extended  to  every  county,  town 
and  village.  I  knew  that  within  twenty -four 
hours  after  giving  my  signed  statement  to  the 
Milwaukee  Sentinel  his  agents  would  be  actively 
in  communication  with  newspapers,  with  po 
litical  committees,  with  the  representatives  of 
prominent  business  interests  throughout  the 
commonwealth . 

Party  feeling  and  party  loyalty  were  still 
strong,  and  partook  in  some  measure  of  the  zeal 
and  fervor  of  the  days  following  the  war.  My 
veracity  had  never  been  questioned  by  any  man. 
I  was  confident  that  the  truth  of  my  statement 
would  be  accepted.  I  did  anticipate  that  men 


160  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

who  loved  the  Republican  party  would  resent  as 
an  attack  upon  it  a  statement  which  must  im 
peach  the  honesty  and  integrity  of  its  leader, 
and  that  while  members  of  my  party  and  all 
men  generally  would  approve  of  my  refusing  a 
bribe,  men  devoted  to  the  success  of  the  Re 
publican  party  would  say  that  I  might  have 
suppressed  the  facts,  though  Sawyer  had  falsi 
fied  them;  that  I  might  indeed  have  withheld 
information  from  the  Court  and,  for  the  good  of 
the  party,  have  kept  secret  all  knowledge  of  the 
fact  that  its  leader  had  attempted  to  corrupt  even 
the  courts.  This  may  seem  strange  in  these 
times  of  growing  independence  and  keener  civic 
conscience;  it  was  vastly  different  twenty  years 
ago. 

Prepared  as  I  was  to  meet  criticism,  no  one 
could  have  anticipated  the  violence  with  which 
the  storm  broke  upon  me.  In  my  own  party 
there  was  no  newspaper  that  dared  to  brook 
Sawyer's  disapproval.  Besides  a  little  group  of 
personal  friends,  there  was  no  one  to  raise  his 
voice  in  my  defense.  Prominent  politicians  de 
nounced  me.  I  was  shunned  and  avoided  every- 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  161 

where  by  men  who  feared  or  sought  the  favor  of 
Senator  Sawyer  and  his  organization.  At  every 
turn  the  way  seemed  barred  to  me.  No  one  can 

ever  know  what  I  suffered.     As  I  recall  the  fear- 

»^- 

f ul  depression  of  those  months,  I  wonder  where ,  / 
I  found  strength  to  endure  them.     But  I  went  * 

>x 

about  my  work  determined  that  no  one  should 
see  in  my  face  or  daily  habit  any  sign  of  what  I 
was  going  through.  But  the  thing  gnawed  all 
the  while.  I  went  from  my  office  to  my  house, 
from  my  house  to  my  office,  and  did  my  work 
as  it  came  to  me  day  by  day.  Fortunately  I 
found  clients  who  wanted  the  services  of  a  man 
who  could  not  be  tempted  by  money.  They 
came  to  me  with  their  cases,  and  I  found  plenty 
to  do.  But  I  could  not  shake  off  or  be  indif 
ferent  to  the  relentless  attacks  upon  my  veracity 
which  came  in  a  steady  onset  from  the  Repub 
lican  press  of  the  state.  Anonymous,  threaten 
ing  letters  crowded  my  mail  with  warnings  that 
if  I  dared  to  show  my  head  in  politics  I  would 
do  well  to  arrange  in  advance  for  a  lot  in  the 
cemetery.  I  did  not  know  it  at  the  time,  nor 
indeed  until  after  Harper's  death,  but  Mrs.  La 


162  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

Follette  has  since  told  me  that  there  was  a  long 
period  following  the  Sawyer  affair  wThen  Sam 
was  so  apprehensive  for  my  personal  safety  that 
he  scarcely  permitted  me  to  be  out  of  his 
sight. 

But  I  was  resolved  that  I  would  not  let  it 
break  me  down.  The  winter  of  1891-92  proved 
an  ordeal.  Sam  Harper,  General  Bryant,  Charles 
Van  Hise,  my  classmate,  then  at  the  head 
of  the  Department  of  Geology  of  the  Univer 
sity  of  Wisconsin,  and  a  few  friends  stayed 
by  me.  These  friends  and  the  immediate  family 
knew  what  I  suffered  during  that  time,  but  on 
the  street,  in  my  office  and  in  the  courtroom,  I 
carried  myself  so  that  no  one  should  know  how 
keenly  I  felt  it  all.  I  slept  very  little  and  there 
was  fear  that  my  health  would  give  way.  But 
it  did  not. 

Fourteen  years  afterward,  when  I  first  came 
v  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  I  was  placed 
in  a  somewhat  similar  position.  I  was  again 
alone.  When  I  entered  the  cloakroom,  men 
turned  their  backs  upon  me  and  conversation 
ceased.  Members  left  their  seats  when  I  be- 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  163 

gan  to  speak.  My  amendments  to  bills  were 
treated  with  derision  and  turned  down  with  a 
lofty  wave  of  the  hand.  For  nearly  two  years 
I  went  through  an  experience  that  had  seldom 
failed  to  bring  a  fresh,  independent  member 
to  terms.  It  was  said  that  I  would  soon  be 
"  eating  out  of  their  hands."  They  did  not 
know  the  iron  that  had  been  driven  into  me 
years  before. 

During  that  winter  of  1891-92  I  spent  much 
time  alone,  in  the  private  room  at  my  law  offices, 
and  in  the  little  study  at  my  home  in  the  long 
hours  of  the  night.  I  went  back  over  my  politi 
cal  experiences.  I  thought  over  many  things 
that  had  occurred  during  my  service  in  the 
House.  I  began  to  understand  their  relation. 
I  had  seen  the  evils  singly  —  here  and  there  a 
manifest  wrong,  against  which  I  had  instinc 
tively  revolted.  But  I  had  been  subjected  to  a 
terrible  shock  that  opened  my  eyes,  and  I  began 
to  see  really  for  the  first  time.  I  find  now  no 
bitterness  and  little  resentment  left  in  me 
against  individuals.  The  men  of  that  time 
filled  their  places  in  a  system  of  things,  in  some 


V 

164  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

measure  the  outgrowth  of  the  wealth  of  our  re 
sources  and  the  eagerness  of  the  public  for  their 
development.  Corporations  and  individuals  al 
lied  with  corporations  were  invited  to  come  in 
and  take  what  they  would,  if  only  the  country 
might  be  developed,  railroads  and  factories  con 
structed,  towns  and  cities  buildedup.  Against 
this  organized  power  it  had  been  my  misfortune 
—  perhaps  my  fortune  —  to  be  thrown  by  cir 
cumstances.  The  experiences  of  my  Congres 
sional  life  now  came  back  to  me  with  new  mean 
ing  —  the  Ship  Subsidy  bill,  the  Oleomargarine 
bill,  the  Nicaraguan  Canal,  the  Railroad  Rate 
bill,  the  Sioux  Indian  land  grant  and  the  Me- 
nomonie  timber  steal. 

So  out  of  this  awful  ordeal  came  understand 
ing;  and  out  of  understanding  came  resolution. 
I  determined  that  the  power  of  this  corrupt  in 
fluence,  which  was  undermining  and  destroying 
every  semblance  of  representative  government 
in  Wisconsin,  should  be  broken. 

I  felt  that  I  had  few  friends;  I  knew  I  had  no 
money  —  could  command  the  support  of  no 
newspaper.  And  yet  I  grew  strong  in  the  con- 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  165 

viction  that  in  the  end  Wisconsin  would  be 
made  free. 

And  in  the  end  it  was  so.  That  Sawyer  in 
cident  had  a  tremendous  effect  on  the  young 
men  of  the  state.  Three  years  afterward,  in 
the  campaign  of  1894,  they  came  into  the  state 
convention,  standing  together  and  taking  defeat 
like  veterans.  The  ten  years'  fight  was  on. 

I  did  not  underrate  the  power  of  the  oppo 
sition.  I  had  been  made  to  feel  its  full  force.  I 
knew  that  Sawyer  and  those  with  him  were 
allied  with  the  railroads,  the  big  business  in 
terests,  the  press,  the  leading  politicians  of 
every  community.  I  knew  the  struggle  would 
be  a  long  one;  that  I  would  have  to  encoun 
ter  defeat  again  and  again.  But  my  resolution 
never  faltered. 

I  well  understood  that  I  must  take  time  to 
develop  my  plan;  that  the  first  encounter  with 
the  organization  in  Wisconsin  must  be  one 
which  should  compel  their  respect,  even  though 
it  resulted  in  temporary  defeat  for  the  reform 
movement.  First  of  all  I  must  make  it  manifest 
that  I  had  not  been  destroyed  as  an  individual. 


166  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

To  do  this  it  was  necessary  to  go  out  and  meet 
men  wherever  they  were  gathered  together  on 
political  occasions. 

The  national  Republican  convention  was 
called  to  meet  in  Minneapolis,  June  7,  1892. 
There  was  no  serious  contest  for  the  presiden 
tial  nomination.  Harrison's  administration  was 
generally  popular  throughout  the  country.  The 
country  was  prosperous,  and  when  the  country 
is  prosperous  a  presidential  administration  is 
popular. 

Harrison  himself  was  a  man  of  superior  ability. 
On  a  trip  across  the  country  in  1891,  he  accom 
plished  a  remarkable  feat.  It  is  generally  said 
of  these  presidential  "swings  around  the  circle" 
that  you  get  substantially  all  the  man  has  to  say 
in  the  first  three  or  four  days;  after  that  he  re 
peats  his  thought  in  varied  form.  Harrison's 
speeches,  however,  made  on  this  trip  to  the 
Pacific  coast,  were  a  notable  series  of  daily 
addresses  covering  a  wide  range  of  important 
subjects,  treated  broadly  and  thoughtfully. 
They  aroused  a  great  deal  of  enthusiasm  and 
were  eagerly  read  by  the  public.  Reserved, 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  167 

undemonstrative,  a  bit  austere  in  manner,  direct, 
quick  to  grasp  a  proposition  and  decide  on  its 
merits,  Harrison  was  a  strong  executive,  com 
manding  the  respect  and  confidence  of  all  with 
whom  he  came  in  contact.  He  was  conservative 
but  not  what  we  would  call  to-day  reactionary. 
His  state  papers  were  noteworthy  for  the  ability 
and  directness  with  which  he  discussed  public 
questions.  He  stood  for  integrity  in  every 
branch  of  the  government;  he  strengthened, 
supported  and  extended  the  civil  service  law; 
he  was  not  in  favor  with  the  spoilsman  and  the 
jobster.  After  his  retirement  from  the  Presi 
dency  he  delivered  many  important  addresses 
throughout  the  country,  one  of  which  in  par 
ticular  was  markedly  progressive  in  thought. 
This  address  was  made  to  the  Union  League 
Club  of  Chicago,  February  22,  1898,  on  the 
"Obligations  of  Wealth."  We  were  then  in  the 
midst  of  our  struggle  in  Wisconsin,  and  I  found 
his  views  as  expressed  therein  of  great  help  to 
me  in  the  speeches  I  was  making  in  support  of 
reforms  in  taxation. 

I  made  no  attempt  to  be  elected  as  a  delegate 


168  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

to  the  convention.  But  I  determined,  never 
theless,  to  attend  as  a  spectator.  Sam  Harper 
went  with  me.  Of  course  the  delegates  elected 
to  the  convention  by  the  Wisconsin  machine 
were  bitterly  hostile  to  me.  My  trouble  with 
Sawyer  had  been  given  wide  publicity  and  was 
well  known  to  all  prominent  politicians  in  that 
great  gathering.  I  knew  that  generally  they 
would  not  judge  the  matter  upon  its  real  merit, 
but  strictly  with  reference  to  its  effect  upon  the 
political  situation  in  Wisconsin.  To  the  extent 
that  it  injured  Sawyer,  the  party  leader  in  the 
state,  it  lessened  the  chances  of  Republican 
success;  and  the  delegates  to  a  national  con 
vention  are  looking  above  all  things  for  imme 
diate  political  victory.  So,  to  that  extent,  I 
anticipated  disapproval  even  among  those  who 
had  been  my  personal  friends  in  public  life  at 
Washington.  It  taxed  my  resolution  severely 
to  meet  these  former  political  friends.  I  found 
all  that  I  had  anticipated  in  the  way  of  coldness 
and  hostility.  One  encounter  which  cut  me  to 
the  quick  will  illustrate  my  meaning : 

I  had  served  for  six  years  in  Congress  with 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  169 

David  B.  Henderson  of  Iowa,  afterward  Speaker 
of  the  House  of  Representatives,  upon  terms  of 
personal  intimacy.  When  the  roll  was  called 
in  the  49th  Congress  for  the  allotment  of  seats, 
mine  chanced  to  fall  almost  within  touch  of 
Henderson,  who  was  already  in  the  seat  which  he 
had  chosen  —  a  sturdy  figure  he  was,  square 
face,  fine  head,  covered  with  thick  iron-gray 
hair.  He  turned  on  me  a  keen,  searching,  yet 
withal  a  kindly  look;  our  eyes  met  for  a  moment, 
and  then  putting  out  his  hand,  he  said,  "Well, 
my  boy,  I  think  you'll  do."  That  was  the  be 
ginning,  and  we  were  always  good  friends.  We 
represented  adjoining  districts,  the  Mississippi 
River  between.  He  had  called  me  across  the 
state  line  to  speak  for  him  in  the  campaign  of 
1890  when  he  feared  that  he  was  losing,  and  had 
often  declared  that  I  was  a  material  help  in 
saving  him  from  defeat  in  that  landslide  year. 
When  I  met  him  at  Minneapolis  he  came  at  me 
quickly  with  "What  are  you  fighting  Sawyer  for, 
and  tearing  things  all  to  pieces  in  Wisconsin?" 
I  told  him  that  if  he  knew  the  truth  he  would  not 
ask  me  such  a  question.  And  then  the  jostling 


170  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

crowd  swept  between  us,  and  I  saw  him  no  more. 
A  few  old-time  friends,  Major  McKinley  among 
them,  greeted  me  cordially  with  a  warm  hand 
and  an  understanding  look  in  the  eye,  though 
in  the  main  I  was  made  to  feel  that  they  re 
garded  me  a  political  outcast.  But  it  was  good 
training;  it  was  seasoning  me  for  the  hard  strug 
gle  ahead. 

With  Harrison's  nomination,  the  Wisconsin 
machine  selected  its  candidates  for  the  state 
campaign.  Former  Senator  Spooner  was  its 
candidate  for  governor.  The  rank  and  file  of 
the  party  had  nothing  to  say  —  Sawyer,  Payne 
and  a  few  others  made  the  plans. 

I  was  not  yet  ready  to  offer  opposition,  and 
decided  to  wait  until  two  years  later.  But  it 
was  obvious  that  I  must  insist  on  keeping  my 
place  as  a  factor  in  the  Republican  campaign  of 
that  year. 

The  defeat  of  Governor  William  D.  Hoard 
two  years  before  had  seriously  divided  the  party. 
Hoard's  friends  felt  that  he  had  not  been  loyally 
supported  by  Payne  in  conducting  the  state 
campaign  of  1890.  In  order  to  mollify  Hoard's 


PHILETUS    SAWYER 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  171 

friends,  and  they  were  legion  among  the  farmers 
of  Wisconsin,  and  to  bring  about  the  desired 
party  harmony,  Payne  withdrew  as  Chairman 
of  the  Republican  State  Central  Committee,  and 
H.  C.  Thorn,  a  warm  personal  friend  of  Hoard 
was  elected  in  his  place. 

During  my  four  Congressional  campaigns  I 
had  been  called  each  time  by  the  Chairman  of 
the  State  Central  Committee  to  speak  outside 
of  my  district,  and  over  the  state.  The  facts 
warrant  me  in  saying,  I  think,  that  there  was  a 
general  demand  in  campaigns  for  my  work  as  a 
speaker.  But  in  the  campaign  of  1892  I  was  not 
invited  to  speak.  This,  I  understood,  was  by 
the  orders  of  the  machine. 

I  had  well  considered  the  wisdom  of  making 
my  fight  against  the  corrupt  organization  in 
Wisconsin  politics  in  the  Republican  party 
rather  than  out  in  the  field  as  an  independent. 

y 

I  believed  in  the  integrity  of  the  rank  and  file  of    * 
the  party.     I  could  see  no  valid  reason  why  I  y 
should  stand  apart  from  the  great  body  of  men  X 
with  whom  I  had  been  affiliated  politically  since 
coming  to  my  majority,  so  long  as  I  was  in  sub- 


172  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

stantial  agreement  with  the  ideas  about  which 
that  party  was  organized.  For  these  reasons, 
briefly  stated,  I  had  settled  it  in  my  own  mind 
that  I  would  fight  within  the  ranks.  I  did  not 
propose  that  those  nominally  in  control  of  the 
party  organization  should  for  any  reason  black 
list  and  put  me  outside  of  the  party  lines.  If  I 
chose  at  any  time  to  leave  the  party,  it  would  be 
because  my  convictions  compelled  me  to  do  so. 
But  I  would  not  recognize  the  authority  of  any 
man  or  any  set  of  men  to  decide  my  party 
status. 

After  waiting  until  it  became  quite  apparent 
that  I  should  not  be  invited,  I  wrote  to  the 
Chairman  of  the  State  Central  Committee  ten 
dering  my  services  as  a  speaker  in  the  campaign. 
He  came  to  see  me  at  my  law  office  in  Madison, 
and  suggested  that  in  view  of  the  feeling  exist 
ing  against  me  on  the  part  of  Senator  Sawyer 
and  his  many  friends,  it  would  be  inadvisable 
for  me  to  take  part  in  the  campaign.  We  were 
personal  friends,  and  discussed  the  matter 
frankly.  He  suggested  that  Senator  Sawyer  was 
an  old  man,  and  that  if  I  ever  wished  to  take 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  173 

any  part  in  political  matters  in  Wisconsin,  the 
easier  course  for  me  would  be  to  wait  until  he 
had  passed  away.  He  suggested  that  the  feel 
ing  against  me  was  very  intense  and  that  my  ap 
pearance  on  the  platform  might  be  resented 
with  violence.  I  answered  that  that  would  not 
deter  me  from  entering  the  campaign;  that  I 
proposed  to  maintain  my  relations  with  the 
party  and  would  not  consent  to  be  turned  out 
to  pasture  to  wait  for  my  opponents  to  die  off; 
that  I  was  opposed  to  the  corrupt  machine 
methods  of  those  in  control  and  intended  to 
stay  on  the  firing  line.  I  furthermore  stated 
that  if  it  was  not  desired  that  I  should  speak 
under  the  auspices  of  the  State  Central  Commit 
tee,  I  would  make  my  own  announcements  and 
speak  under  my  own  auspices ;  that  I  was  deeply 
interested  in  Harrison's  election  and  wanted  to 
do  all  in  my  power  for  him;  and  that  I  was  rea 
sonably  confident  that  I  would  have  as  good 
meetings  in  numbers  and  results  as  any  managed 
by  the  State  Central  Committee.  Chairman 
Thorn  thereupon  decided  that  if  I  was  going  to 
speak  anyway,  he  preferred  that  I  should  speak 


174  THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD 

under  the  direction  of  the  State  Central  Com 
mittee. 

This  I  told  him  would  be  perfectly  agreeable 
to  me,  but  that  I  should  designate  the  places 
where  I  was  to  speak.  He  desired  to  know  what 
my  attitude  would  be  regarding  the  state  ticket. 
I  told  him  that  I  should  discuss  national  issues. 

I  never  held  better  meetings  in  any  political 
campaign.  I  found  every  town  placarded  with 
great  posters  in  flaming  red,  urging  that  I  be 
called  upon  in  my  meetings  to  discuss  the 
Sawyer  affair.  These  posters  contained  a  list 
of  questions  which  it  was  urged  should  be  put 
up  to  me  for  answer.  I  had  little  doubt  that 
they  emanated  from  Democratic  sources,  and 
it  was  their  purpose  to  force  that  issue  into  my 
campaign. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  in  no  instance  through 
out  that  campaign  was  there  a  single  unfriendly 
interruption  from  the  audience,  and  never  was  I 
given  a  more  respectful  and  attentive  hearing. 
I  was  greatly  encouraged  and  firmly  convinced 
that  whatever  the  attitude  of  the  politicians, 
I  still  had  many  friends  among  the  people. 


THE  CRUCIAL  PERIOD  175    / 

In  the  next  campaign,  that  of  1894,  I  began 
my  fight  on  the  Wisconsin  machine  which  con 
tinued  for  ten  years  and  resulted  in  the  com 
plete  reorganization  of  the  Republican  party  of 
the  state.  Of  the  details  of  that  fight  I  shall 
tell  in  the  following  chapters. 


CHAPTER  V 

six    YEARS'    STRUGGLE    WITH    THE   WISCONSIN 
BOSSES 

I   HAD  firmly  determined  to  begin  my  fight 
on  the  old  political  machine  in  Wisconsin 
in  the  campaign  of  1894.     While  I  had  no 
money  and  no  newspaper  support,  and  while  all 
the  leading  politicians  of  the  state  were  bitterly 
hostile  to  me,  the  success  of  my  meetings  in  the 
previous  campaign  of  1892  convinced  me  that  I 
could  get  a  hearing. 

But  it  was  essential  to  the  success  of  any  such 
undertaking  that  some  strong  man  who  would 
appeal  to  the  younger  and  more  independent 
members  of  the  Republican  party  should  be 
found  to  stand  as  the  anti-machine  candidate 
for  governor. 

Such  a  man,  I  felt,  was  Congressman  Nils  P. 
Haugen. 

176 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       177 

I  had  known  Haugen  for  many  years.  He  had 
been  a  member  of  the  legislature,  and  railroad 
commissioner  under  a  weak  statute  which  he 
administered  with  marked  ability  and  inde 
pendence,  and  having  been  elected  to  the  49th 
Congress,  he  had  served  with  distinction  for 
nine  years.  During  five  years  of  that  time  I 
had  been  closely  associated  with  him  in  the 
House  of  Representatives.  We  were  agreed  in 
practically  all  our  views  upon  public  questions. 
I  knew  him  to  be  fearless,  independent,  and  able. 
A  native  of  Norway,  he  was  educated  in  this 
country,  graduating  from  the  Michigan  Uni 
versity  Law  School  in  1874.  He  was  a  fine  rep 
resentative  of  the  best  Scandinavian  type  — 
tall,  strong,  virile,  with  something  of  the  Vi 
king  quality  in  his  character. 

I  considered  the  matter  carefully.  Many  of 
the  counties  of  the  western  half  of  the  state 
were  well  settled  by  sturdy  Scandinavian  pio 
neers  —  an  independent,  liberty -loving  people. 
I  knew  they  felt  a  certain  national  pride  in 
Congressman  Haugen's  prominence  and  success, 
and  I  counted  on  their  giving  him  very  strong 


178       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

support.  On  my  part  I  still  had  many  friends 
in  my  old  Congressional  district,  and  among 
men  all  over  the  state,  who  could,  I 


knew,  be  enlisted  in  any  fight  upon  the  machine. 
Between  us,  I  believed  we  could  carry  a  good 
many  counties.  It  seemed  to  me,  therefore, 
that  Haugen  was  the  ideal  candidate  for  the 
first  encounter  with  the  bosses.  But  would  he 
consider  being  a  candidate? 

The  chances  wrere  all  against  winning.  His 
hold  upon  his  district  was  very  strong,  and  there 
wras  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  could  con 
tinue  in  Congress  for  many  years  to  come.  I 
knew  he  enjoyed  his  work  in  the  House,  and  he 
had  rendered  good  service  to  the  state  and  coun 
try.  Ought  he  to  be  asked  to  take  the  chance? 

But  there  was  the  good  State  of  Wisconsin 
ruled  by  a  handful  of  men  who  had  destroyed 
every  vestige  of  democracy  in  the  common 
wealth.  They  settled  in  private  conference 
practically  all  nominations  for  important  offices, 
controlled  conventions,  dictated  legislation,  and 
had  even  sought  to  lay  corrupt  hands  on  the 
courts  of  justice. 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       179 

Had  I  believed  that  I  as  a  candidate  could 
have  led  as  strong  an  attack  upon  this  entrenched 
organization,  I  should  not  have  asked  Haugen 
or  any  other  man  to  make  that  first  fight.  But 
I  believed  then,  as  I  believe  now,  that  however 
forlorn  the  hope  of  immediate  achievement,  the 
great  final  issue  at  stake  demanded  that  the 
best  and  strongest  man  should  meet  this  call 
to  service  as  a  patriotic  duty. 

In  November,  1893,  I  requested  Haugen  to 
stop  at  Madison  en  route  to  Washington,  and 
I  then  pressed  him  to  become  a  candidate  for 
governor.  He  raised  the  objections  which  I 
had  anticipated. 

'You  know,"  he  said,  in  his  direct,  incisive 
way,  "the  forces  we  will  have  to  meet.  They 
have  money;  we  have  none.  They  have  a 
powerful  organization  extending  into  every 
county  in  the  state.  Our  support  will  be  scat 
tered  and  isolated.  They  will  have  the  rail 
roads,  the  great  business  interests,  and  the  news 
papers  back  of  them.  How  can  we  hope  to 
win?"  1 

I  proposed  to  Mr.  Haugen  that  he  consent  to 


180       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

my  writing  letters  to  old  university  friends  over 
the  state,  calling  upon  them  to  join  in  sup 
porting  him  as  a  candidate  for  governor. 

This  was  agreed  to,  and  I  wrote  something 
like  1200  letters,  mainly  to  young  men  who  were 
neither  allied  with  the  Sawyer-Payne  machine 
nor  hitherto  active  in  politics.  The  replies 
gave  me  great  encouragement,  and  I  asked 
Mr.  Haugen  to  meet  me  in  Chicago,  where  wTe 
spent  a  day  going  through  the  correspondence. 
Haugen  was  much  gratified;  he  had  no  idea 
that  my  letters  would  meet  with  any  such  re 
sponse. 

I  recall  vividly  our  final  conference.  It  was 
at  my  home  in  Madison.  There  were  present 
Mrs.  La  Follette,  whose  counsel  was  always  val 
ued  by  our  little  group,  General  Bryant,  Sam 
Harper,  and  Herbert  W.  Chynoweth,  a  leading 
attorney,  then  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Uni 
versity  Regents.  After  consenting  to  stand  as 
a  candidate,  Haugen  said:  "It  is  my  judgment 
that  we  shall  lose  this  fight,  and  I  shall  be  retired 
from  public  life.  But  there  is  a  chance  to  win, 
and  in  any  event,  \ve  will  make  a  beginning." 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       181 

No  sooner  was  Haugen's  candidacy  announced 
than  the  fight  was  on.  I  had  no  misconception 
of  the  task  which  we  had  undertaken.  I  knew 
full  well  that  we  were  entering  upon  a  long  politi 
cal  warfare.  We  opened  headquarters  in  my  law 
office,  and  for  many  weeks  the  lights  never  went 
out.  Candidates  for  governor  were  brought 
forward  in  other  sections  of  the  state  -  -  W.  H. 
Upham  in  central  Wisconsin,  Edward  Scofield 
in  the  northeast,  and  "Hod ""Taylor,  as  he  was 
known,  from  Dane  County,  in  the  southern 
part  of  the  state.  These  candidates  were  in 
perfect  accord,  and  all  had  the  favor  of  the 
bosses  of  Wisconsin.  Sooner  or  later  the 
strength  which  each  could  command  in  the 
convention  would  be  merged  to  secure  victory 
for  the  machine.  Sawyer  declared  that  I  should 
never  have  a  seat  in  a  Republican  convention 
in  Wisconsin,  nor  hold  political  office,  as  long  as 
he  lived.  He  was  friendly  to  every  other  candi 
date,  and  announced  that  he  had  nothing  against 
Haugen,  but  would  oppose  him  as  "La  Follette's 
candidate." 

The  fight    centred  on  Dane    County,  which 


182       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

was  the  heart  of  my  old  district.  Sawyer's 
money  was  everywhere.  The  opposition  con 
trolled  the  county  organization,  and  Roger  C. 
Spooner,  brother  of  Senator  Spooner,  was  chair 
man  of  the  county  committee.  In  order  to 
make  it  as  difficult  as  possible  for  us,  the  machine 
brought  forward  no  fewer  than  three  candidates 
on  the  state  ticket  from  Dane  County  alone, 
only  one  of  whom  (under  the  usages  of  conven 
tions  in  distributing  the  offices  geographically) 
could  hope  to  be  nominated.  It  was  "anything 
to  beat  Haugen  and  kill  off  La  Follette."  Con 
sidered  as  a  county  fight,  it  was  the  hottest  I 
ever  saw. 

The  bi-partisan  character  of  machine  politics 
v  became  a  prominent  feature  of  the  contest. 
Democratic  machine  newspapers  and  politicians 
joined  with  Republican  machine  newspapers  and 
politicians  to  suppress  this  first  organized  revolt. 
The  whole  state  watched  the  contest  in  Dane 
County.  If  the  machine  were  successful  there, 
if  I  were  defeated  in  my  own  county  as  a  dele 
gate  to  the  state  convention,  it  meant  the 
breaking  down  of  Haugen's  campaign.  I  sat 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       183 

at  my  desk  almost  day  and  night  dictating 
letters  to  the  Republican  farmers,  among  whom 
I  had  a  very  wide  personal  acquaintance. 

The  first  caucuses,  held  in  the  city  of  Madison 
and  in  two  other  small  cities  in  the  county, 
registered  a  complete  victory  for  the  machine. 
We  were  defeated  in  every  ward.  It  was  a 
gloomy  night  in  our  headquarters.  Many 
were  disheartened  and  felt  that  it  was  a  fore 
runner  of  overwhelming  defeat.  But  it  only 
strengthened  my  resolution  to  win,  and  after  a 
brief  talk  every  man  wrent  out  from  the  head 
quarters  writh  zeal  to  carry  the  country  foyms 
of  the  county,  which  might  still  give  us  a  major 
ity.  The  struggle  from  that  time  on  grew  fiercer 
to  the  end,  which  came  quickly.  We  fairly 
swept  the  country  towns,  carried  the  county 
convention  by  four  to  one,  and  I  was  elected  to 
head  the  delegation  to  the  state  convention. 
To  give  emphasis  to  the  result,  the  convention 
adopted  strong  resolutions  declaring  for  Haugen 
for  governor.  The  remaining  four  counties  of 
my  former  Congressional  district  were  likewise 
carried  in  succession,  and  it  was  a  great  satis- 


184       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

faction  to  lead  the  old  district  into  the  conven 
tion  to  back  Haugen's  candidacy. 

We  did  not  fare  so  well  in  Haugen's  district. 
The  machine  brought  forward  a  leading  Scan 
dinavian  politician  as  a  candidate  for  governor, 
and  thus  embarrassed  the  canvass  in  Haugen's 
home  county,  which  he  lost  —  together  with 
certain  other  counties  of  his  district. 

The  contest  for  the  nomination  in  the  state 
convention  lasted  two  days.  The  machine  united 
on  W.  H.  Upham,  who  was  finally  nominated. 
Our  forces  had  passed  through  such  a  struggle  for 
election  that  they  were  fused  together  as  one  man. 
It  was  a  rigid  line-up  against  the  bosses,  and  while 
we  lost  the  nomination  for  governor,  their  forces 
so  scattered  on  the  remaining  nominations  that 
we  held  the  balance  of  power,  and  named  practi 
cally  every  other  man  on  the  ticket.  The  old  ma 
chine  was  tried  to  the  breaking  point,  and  we  came 
out  of  that  campaign  tremendously  enthused 
and  stimulated  for  the  work  ahead.  Sawyer, 
Payne,  and  the  other  big  ones  had  been  pressed 
into  strenuous  and  continuous  activity  through 
out  the  convention  to  hold  their  forces  in  line. 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       185 

Haugen  accepted  his  defeat  with  fine  spirit. 
Expressing  no  regrets,  he  went  back  to  his  home 
in  the  little  town  of  River  Falls,  Pierce  County, 
and  resumed  his  law  practice.  It  was  not  with 
out  a  keen  pang  that  I  saw  him  retired  from 
public  life,  but  defeated  though  we  were,  the 
spirit  of  the  campaign  of  1894  and  the  evidence 
of  a  growing  conviction  that  held  our  forces 
unwaveringly  throughout  the  convention  strug 
gle,  gave  me  strong  assurance  for  the  future. 
We  had  gone  down  to  our  defeat  in  the  first 
battle,  but  I  never  doubted  we  should  rise  again 
to  fight,  and  win  final  victory  over  the  old 
machine.  And  when  we  did  win,  one  of  my  ear 
liest  acts  as  governor  was  to  bring  Haugen's 
great  abilities  to  the  service  of  the  state  as  a 
member  of  the  tax  commission.  He  has 
served  continuously  in  that  position  since,  is 
now  its  chairman,  and  has  become  a  leading 
authority  on  taxation  in  the  United  States. 

I  did  not  at  that  period  put  forward  a  broadly 
constructive  policy.  My  correspondence  of  that 
time  shows  that  appeal  was  made  for  support 
primarily  with  a  view  to  overthrowing  corrupt 


186       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

machine  control.     It  was  clear  to  me  that  the 

y  single  issue  against  boss  rule  would  be  more 

^x  immediately  effective    in  securing  support    in 

the  first  contest  than  a  program  for  legislation 

which  would  necessarily  require  much  more  time 

^forjeducational  work. 

As  I  considered  the  future,  it  was  clear  that  it 
would  be  necessary  to  devote  six  weeks  to  two 
months  out  of  each  biennial  period,  and  pos 
sibly  each  year,  in  speaking  and  pamphleteering 
the  state.  I  therefore  withdrew  from  the  firm 
of  La  Follette,  Harper,  Roe  &  Zimmerman  and 
opened  an  office  by  myself.  I  found  it  neces 
sary,  owing  to  the  steady  growth  of  my  law 
business,  to  employ  two  attorneys  most  of  the 
time  to  aid  me  in  briefing  and  preparing  cases 
for  trial.  But  the  new  arrangement  gave  me 
perfect  freedom  and  independence.  While  I 
applied  myself  industriously  to  my  profession, 
I  set  aside  a  brief  period  in  the  autumn  of  each 
year,  which  I  devoted  to  speeches  and  addresses 
throughout  the  state. 

The  campaign  of  1894  resulted  in  a  sweeping 
victory  for  the  Republicans.  Upham  was  elected 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       187 

governor  and  the  old  Sawyer-Payne-Spooner 
machine  came  back  to  power  with  restored  con 
fidence.  Almost  the  first  thing  they  did  was  to 
tamper  with  the  work  of  the  former  Democratic 
administration  in  connection  with  the  treasury 
cases.  When  the  legislature  assembled  there 
had  already  been  returned  to  the  state,  as  a 
result  of  the  prosecutions  of  former  state 
treasurers,  no  less  than  $427,902.55,  and  there 
had  been  put  into  judgment  the  further  sum  of 
$181,015.68,  making  a  total  of  $608,918.23. 
Other  cases  were  still  pending.  The  bosses  at 
once  began  developing  a  plan  to  relieve  the  ex- 
treasurers  from  the  "hardship"  of  paying  their 
full  indebtedness  to  the  state,  and,  as  a  feeler, 
put  through  legislation  releasing  one  of  the 
treasurers  from  the  payment  of  a  portion  of  the 
judgment  secured  against  him,  and  providing 
for  the  discontinuance  of  all  the  cases  against 
two  of  the  other  ex-treasurers. 

Members  of  the  legislature  were  fearful  of 
public  sentiment  and  reluctant  to  pass  the 
measures,  but  a  powerful  lobby  was  organized 
under  the  immediate  charge  of  Charles  F. 


188       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

Pfister  of  Milwaukee,  who  had  recently  appeared 
as  a  power  in  Wisconsin  politics.  Pfister  had 
inherited  several  millions  from  his  father,  Guido 
Pfister,  who  had  been  a  bondsman  for  one  of  the 
state  treasurers,  against  whom  a  judgment 
amounting  to  $106,683.90  had  been  obtained. 
Pfister  had  been  associated  with  Henry  C.  Payne 
and  Frank  G.  Bigelow,  president  of  the  First 
National  Bank  of  Milwaukee,  in  street  railway 
and  other  municipal  enterprises,  and  had  been 
rapidly  promoted  to  a  position  of  authority  in 
the  Wisconsin  machine. 

The  audacity  of  this  attempt  to  relieve  the 
ex-treasurers  by  legislation  passed  under  the 
whip  and  spur  of  a  powerful  lobby  is  more  ap 
parent  when  it  is  understood  that  throughout 
the  campaign  of  1894  the  Democrats  warned 
voters  that  if  a  Republican  governor  and  legis 
lature  were  elected  the  ex-treasurers  would  be 
"let  off." 

And  they  were  let  off:  obligations  aggregating 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars  were 
cancelled,  and  the  bills  were  signed  by  Governor 
Upham. 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       189 

At  the  approach  of  the  next  campaign,  that 
of  1896,  Sawyer,  Spooner,  Payne,  and  Pfister 
saw  plainly  that  they  would  have  to  meet  the 
resentment  of  the  people  upon  this  issue.  It 
would  not  do  to  offer  Upham  again  as  a  candi 
date.  It  is  true  that  he  had  done  their  bidding: 
he  had  served  the  bosses,  but  by  that  very  serv 
ice  he  had  weakened  himself  as  a  candidate. 
Although  he  was  personally  entitled  to  every 
consideration  at  their  hands,  he  had  gained  no 
independent  strength  with  the  people,  and  it 
was  easy  to  cast  him  aside. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem  to  the  reader  unac 
quainted  with  machine  methods,  the  question  of 
Upham's  renomination  in  1896  was  disposed  of 
in  the  Planters'  Hotel,  at  St.  Louis,  at  the  time 
of  the  national  Republican  convention.  The 
bosses  did  not  regard  the  selection  of  a  candidate 
for  governor  as  a  matter  in  which  the  voters  of 
Wisconsin  were  entitled  to  have  any  voice. 
During  a  recess  in  the  sessions  of  the  convention, 
Governor  Upham  was  summoned  before  an 
executive  session  of  the  Wisconsin  bosses,  in 
formed  that  he  would  not  be  given  the  endorse- 


190       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

ment  of  a  renomination,  and  his  successor, 
Edward  Scofield,  was  chosen.  Of  course,  they 
expected  afterward  to  go  through  the  formality 
of  calling  caucuses  and  conventions  and  declare 
the  nomination  according  to  party  usage.  But 
it  never  occurred  to  these  political  rulers  of  the 
commonwealth  that  there  was  anything  gro 
tesque  in  their  disposing  of  the  government  of 
the  state  as  a  side  issue  to  a  national  convention. 

I  came  back  from  the  national  convention 
in  1896,  to  which  I  had  been  elected  as  an  anti- 
machine  delegate,  and  conferred  with  friends 
to  determine  on  the  strongest  and  soundest 
man  to  stand  against  Sawyer  and  his  political 
machine.  But  with  the  sacrifice  of  Haugen 
fresh  in  mind,  no  man  was  willing  to  go  out  in  the 
open  as  the  candidate  against  that  great  power. 

I  was  determined  that  the  fight  should  go  on 
and  therefore  announced  myself  as  an  anti- 
machine  candidate.  An  address  to  the  inde 
pendent  Republican  voters  of  the  state  was 
issued  in  my  behalf  by  a  number  of  my  sup 
porters,  headed  by  ex-Governor  W.  D.  Hoard, 
in  which  they  said: 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       191 

"The  time  is  near  at  hand  when  the  Republican 
voters  must  assemble  in  their  respective  cau 
cuses  and  choose  delegates  to  their  assembly 
conventions  where  in  turn  delegates  will  be 
chosen  to  the  state  convention  for  the  purpose 
of  nominating  a  candidate  for  governor. 

"In  our  opinion  it  is  of  the  highest  importance 
that  a  people's  man  be  chosen  as  such  candidate. 
There  was  never  a  time  when  such  a  man  was 
more  needed  for  the  important  office  of  chief 
executive  of  Wisconsin  than  now.  Will  the 
people  take  their  own  work  in  their  own  hands, 
or  will  they  allow,  as  they  have  too  often  done, 
a  ring  of  shrewd  bosses  to  select  their  candidates 
for  them?  The  discontent  which  has  prevailed 
in  our  party  for  nearly  two  years  ought  to  teach 
us  a  lesson.  It  ought  to  bring  every  Republican 
voter  to  the  primary  caucuses  with  a  deter 
mination  to  discharge  his  own  duty  as  a  true 
Republican  citizen." 

It  was  an  exciting  campaign.  My  candidacy 
was'at  first  greeted  with  jeers,  but  as  it  progressed, 
Sawyer,  Spooner,  Payne,  and  Pfister  soon  real 
ized  that  their  organization  was  in  danger  of 


192      STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

defeat.  Against  a  practically  united  press,  a 
veteran  army  of  trained  politicians,  and  the 
lavish  expenditure  of  money,  I  came  down  to  the 
convention  at  Milwaukee  on  the  fifth  day  of 
August,  1896,  with  delegates  enough  pledged  and 
instructed  to  nominate  me  on  the  first  formal 
ballot. 

There  were  six  candidates  for ;  governor,  of 
whom  Scofield  was  the  leading  machine  candi 
date.  All  had  headquarters  at  the  Hotel  Pfister. 
Shortly  after  ten  o'clock  that  night,  Captain 
John  T.  Rice,  the  leader  of  a  delegation  from  one 
of  the  Assembly  districts  in  Racine  County, 
informed  me  that  he  had  been  taken  aside  into 
a  private  room  and  offered  seven  hundred  dollars 
in  money  to  transfer  the  seven  delegates  from 
his  Assembly  district  to  Scofield's  support. 
Between  that  time  and  twelve  o'clock  many  other 
delegates  reported  like  personal  experiences. 
One  after  another  these  delegates,  in  the  pres 
ence  of  Sam  Harper,  General  Bryant,  and  other 
friends,  made  detailed  statements  of  what  had 
transpired  with  them  that  night.  These  men 
had  rejected  all  offers  made  to  them.  How 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       193 

many  of  my  delegates  had  yielded  to  the  temp 
tation  I  did  not  know. 

Shortly  after  midnight  Charles  F.  Pfister 
came  to  my  headquarters  and  asked  to  see  me 
alone. 

"La  Toilette,"  he  said,  "we've  got  you 
skinned.  We've  got  enough  of  your  delegates 
away  from  you  to  defeat  you  in  the  convention 
to-morrow.  Now,  we  don't  want  any  trouble 
or  any  scandal.  We  don't  want  to  hurt  the 
party.  And  if  you  will  behave  yourself,  we  will 
take  care  of  you  when  the  time  comes." 

I  told  Mr.  Pfister  that  I  was  able  to  take  care 
of  myself  and  that  I  would  whip  their  machine 
to  a  standstill  in  the  convention  the  next  day. 
I  was  not  sure  but  that  they  had  me  beaten, 
but  I  didn't  propose  to  run  up  any  white  flag. 
Ijiidn^Jiave  one. 

When  the  balloting  came  on  the  next  day,  I 
was  beaten,  just  as  Pfister  said.  My  delegates 
understood  what  had  defeated  them.  The  work 
of  the  bosses  had  been  coarse  and  rank.  When 
it  was  over  my  steadfast  supporters  came  back 
in  a  body  to  the  headquarters.  Wrought  up  to 


194  STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 
a  high  pitch  they  indignantly  demanded  that  I 
stand  as  an  independent  candidate,  as  a  rebuke 
to  the  methods  employed  to  defeat  the  will  of 
the  people.  I  shall  never  forget  the  excited 
throng,  their  flushed  faces,  their  bitter  disap 
pointment.  One  of  them,  a  young  fellow  —  it 
was  his  first  convention -- broke  down  and 
sobbed  like  a  child.  I  stood  up  and  spoke  to 
them:  they  needed  to  know  that  the  defeat 
would  not  turn  me  back  but  drive  me  on  with 
higher  resolve.  There  came  to  me  those  lines 
o£  Henley's  which  had  often  inspired  me,  and 
which  I  repeated  to  them: 

"Out  of  the  night  that  covers  me, 
Black  as  the  pit  from  pole  to  pole, 
I  thank  whatever  gods  there  be 
For  my  unconquerable  soul. 

"In  the  fell  clutch  of  circumstance 
I  have  not  winced  nor  cried  aloud; 
Under  the  bludgeoning  of  chance, 
My  head  is  bloody  but  unbowed. 

"It  matters  not  how  strait  the  gate, 
How  charged  with  punishment  the  scroll, 
I  am  the  master  of  my  fate, 
I  am  the  captain  of  my  soul." 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       195 

The  outraged  spirit  of  the  group  quickly 
changed.  The  mood  to  destroy,  to  get  quick 
redress,  gave  way,  and  they  faced  to  the  front 
with  courage  to  fight  on.  I  said  to  them  that 
the  men  who  win  final  victories  are  those  who 
are  stimulated  to  better  fighting  by  defeat;  that 
the  people  had  not  betrayed  us,  but  that  they 
themselves  had  been  betrayed  by  those  whom 
they  had  sent  to  serve  them  in  that  convention; 
that  the  wrong  was  not  here,  it  was  there;  that 
it  would  be  weak  and  cowardly  to  abandon  the 
rank  and  file  who  believed  as  we  believed;  that 
if  any  one  was  forced  to  leave  the  Republican 
party  it  should  be  the  corrupt  leaders;  that  the 
bosses  were  not  the  party;  that  the  fault  lay  with 
the  system  that  permitted  corrupt  agents  to  be 
tray  their  principles;  that  the  evil  work  of  the 
night  before  had  forced  me  to  do  some  hard 
thinking,  and  that  I  was  going  home  to  find  some 
better  way;  that  we  would  never  compromise, 
never  abandon  the  fight  until  we  had  made  gov 
ernment  truly  representative  of  the  people. 

That  little  army  went  back  to  their  homes 
and  told  the  true  story  of  that  convention. 


196       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

At  that  time,  I  had  never  heard  of  the  direct 
primary.  Indeed,  there  was  no  direct  primary 
statute  in  any  state,  excepting  a  weak  optional 
law  in  Kentucky.  In  order  to  become  familiar 
with  every  phase  of  the  caucus  and  convention 
system,  I  briefed  all  the  laws  relative  to  cau 
cuses  and  conventions.  I  had  resolved  to 
attack  and,  if  possible,  overthrow  the  whole 
system  in  Wisconsin. 

A  little  later,  I  accepted  an  invitation  from 
President  Harper  of  the  Chicago  University  to 
make  an  address  before  the  faculty  and  students 
of  that  institution  on  the  22d  of  February,  1897. 
I  took  as  my  theme,  "The  Menace  of  the  Po 
litical  Machine."  After  portraying  the  evils  of 
caucuses  and  conventions,  and  showing  how 
readily  they  lend  themselves  to  manipulation, 
defeating  the  will  of  the  majority,  I  outlined  a 
complete  system  of  direct  nominations  for  all 
county,  legislative,  and  state  offices,  by  both 
parties  upon  the  same  day,  under  the  Australian 
ballot.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  this  was  the  first 
presentation  of  a  complete  direct  nominating 
system.  In  that  speech,  I  said  in  conclusion: 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES      m 

"Beginning  the  work  in  the  state,  put  aside 
the  caucus  and  convention.  They  have  been 
and  will  continue  to  be  prostituted  to  the  service 
of  corrupt  organization.  They  answer  no  pur 
pose  further  than  to  give  respectable  form  to 
political  robbery.  Abolish  the  caucus  and  the 
convention.  Go  J)ack  to  the  first  principles  of 
democracy;  go  back  to  the  people.  Substitute 
for  both  the  caucus  and  the  convention  a  pri-  / 
mary  election  —  held  under  the  sanctions  of  law  / 
which  prevail  at  the  general  elections  —  where 
the  citizen  may  cast  his  vote  directly  to  nomi 
nate  the  candidate  of  the  party  with  which  he 
affiliates  and  have  it  canvassed  and  returned 
just  as  he  cast  it.  ...  Then  every  citizen 
will  share  equally  in  the  nomination  of  the  can 
didates  of  his  party  and  attend  primary  elec 
tions  as  a  privilege  as  well  as  a  duty.  It  will 
no  longer  be  necessary  to  create  an  artificial 
interest  in  the  general  election  to  induce  voters 
to  attend.  Intelligent,  well-considered  judg 
ment  will  be  substituted  for  unthinking  enthus 
iasm,  the  lamp  of  reason  for  the  torchlight.  The 
voter  will  not  require  to  be  persuaded  that  he  has 


198       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

an  interest  in  the  election.  He  will  know  that 
he  has.  The  nominations  of  the  party  will  not 
be  the  result  of  'compromise'  or  impulse,  or 
evil  design  —  the  e  barrel '  and  the  machine — but 
the  candidates  of  the  majority,  honestly  and 
fairly  nominated." 

Of  this  address  the  Chicago  Times  Herald  said : 

"Mr.  La  Follette's  experience  with  the  ma 
chine  has  resulted  in  some  well  considered  and 
well  matured  plans  for  the  abatement  of  the  evils 
growing  out  of  our  loose  primary  elections.  If 
the  eminently  wise  and  practical  suggestions 
as  to  how  the  machine  may  be  stripped  of  its 
power  in  our  party  politics,  which  Mr.  La 
Toilette  elaborated  in  his  address  before  the 
students  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  ulti 
mately  find  embodiment  in  state  laws,  the 
people  will  have  occasion  to  feel  grateful  that 
men  of  his  calibre  have  been  forced  into  con 
flict  with  machine  fighters.  .  .  .  Laws 
based  on  the  lines  suggested  in  Mr.  La  Follette's 
admirable  address  will  afford  the  only  practical 
relief  from  the  despotism  of  machine  politics." 

Immediately  after  making  this  address,  I  pre 
pared,  with  the  assistance  of  Sam  Harper,  a  bill 
incorporating  my  plan  for  direct  nominations 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       199 

which  was  introduced  in  the  Legislature  of  1897 
by  William  T.  Lewis,  a  member  from  Racine. 
It  was  not  expected  that  it  would  receive  favor 
able  consideration,  but  it  was  a  beginning.  I 
knew  that  it  would  take  a  long  educational  cam 
paign  to  prepare  the  way  for  its  adoption.  I 
considered,  therefore,  the  best  and  cheapest 
means  of  introducing  it  into  every  home  in 
Wisconsin.  I  had  a  limited  state  list  which  I 
had  used  in  the  campaigns  of  1894  and  1896,  but 
pamphleteering  through  the  mails  entails  con 
siderable  expense.  I  therefore  wrote  to  the 
owners  of  country  weeklies  of  both  parties,  well 
distributed  over  the  state,  and  told  them  of  my 
address  at  the  Chicago  University;  that  the 
Chicago  papers  had  considered  it  of  sufficient 
importance  to  give  it  two  or  three  columns  of 
space,  and  that  I  believed  it  would  be  found 
interesting  to  their  readers.  I  offered  to  furnish 
the  address  and  the  draft  of  the  bill  in  the  form 
of  a  supplement  without  charge,  to  be  folded  in, 
and  distributed  in  the  next  regular  issue  of  their 
papers.  Something  over  three  hundred  news 
papers  agreed  to  receive  it  —  I  do  not  now  recall 


200       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

a  single  refusal  of  my  offer  —  and  I  thus  secured 
the  distribution  of  something  like  400,000  copies 
of  my  address,  press  comments  on  the  same,  and 
a  copy  of  the  bill.  Having  some  spare  space  I 
filled  it  out  with  an  address  by  Charles  Noble 
Gregory,  now  Dean  of  the  Law  Department  of 
the  George  Washington  University,  on  the  Eng 
lish  Corrupt  Practices  Act.  One  of  those  old 
supplements  lies  before  me  as  I  write.  I  think, 
in  all  my  campaigning,  I  never  got  an  equal 
amount  of  publicity  at  less  cost.  There  came  a 
time  later  when  the  machine  was  powerful 
enough  to  prevent  my  publishing  a  line  in  most 
of  these  papers,  and  forced  me  to  use  pamphlets 
and  letters  almost  entirely.  But  of  this  I  shall 
speak  later. 

I  had  been  defeated  in  the  state  convention 
at  Milwaukee  through  fraud  and  corruption. 
But  I  went  into  the  campaign  with  zest,  and 
spoke  in  every  important  city  and  town  in  the 
state,  closing  the  campaign  in  Milwaukee  before 
an  immense  audience.  Although  the  para 
mount  issue  in  the  campaign  was  sound  money, 
yet  with  McKinley  as  the  candidate  for  Presi- 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       201 

dent,  the  recent  repeal  of  the  McKinley  Tariff 
Act,  and  the  enactment  of  the  Wilson-Gorman 
Law,  made  the  tariff  as  a  matter  of  course  also 
a  prominent  issue.  My  personal  acquaintance 
with  McKinley  and  my  affection  for  him  made 
my  interest  in  the  campaign  one  of  deep  feeling 
and  conviction.  Having  aided  in  framing  and 
passing  the  tariff  bill,  I  had  a  familiarity  with 
the  subject  which  enabled  me  to  discuss  it  with 
freedom  and  confidence. 

The  bosses  would  have  been  pleased  had  I 
bolted  the  convention  of  1896.  The  desperate 
means  to  which  they  were  driven  to  control 
that  convention  convinced  Sawyer  and  his  as 
sociates  of  the  growing  strength  of  the  opposition 
to  the  machine,  and  gave  them  serious  appre 
hension  for  the  future.  It  was  said  that  in  a 
conference,  when  it  was  over,  Sawyer,  drawing 
a  long  breath,  mopped  his  perspiring  face  and 
said: 

"I  never  want  to  go  through  so  hard  a  fight 
ag'in." 

Years  afterward,  Stephenson,  now  Senator, 
who  was  then  with  the  machine  and  afterward 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

from  1900  to  1908  a  supporter  of  our  movement, 
told  me  that  in  a  conference  with  Sawyer  and 
the  others  after  my  defeat,  he  (Stephenson)  said 
to  them: 

"I  can't  help  feelin'  a  good  deal  of  sympathy 
for  Bob  La  Toilette.     We've  got  the  newspapers, 
the  organization,  the  railroads,  and  free  passes, 
and  all  the  money,  and  he  is  fightin'  us  all  alone. 
If  he'd  a  had  money  enough  to  buy  a  few  more 
postage  stamps,  he'd  a  beat  us  sure." 
-     Yes,  I  think  Sawyer,  Spooner,  Pfister,  and 
Payne  would  have  been  glad  to  see  me  leave  the 
party    and    start    an    independent    movement. 
Many  of  my  close  advisers,  too,  believed  that 
we  should  break  from  the  Republican  organiza 
tion  and  try  to  build  up  a  new  reform  party  in 
the  state.      Many  Progressives  urge  this  same 
course  to-day.     But  I  do  not  believe  that  it  lies 
in  the  power  of  any  one  man  or  group  of  men 
successfully  to  proclaim  the  creation  of  a  new 
i  political  party,  and  give  it  life,  and  being,  and 
achievement,  and  perpetuity.     New  parties  are 
brought  forth  from  time  to  time,  and  groups  of 
men  have  come  forward  as  their  heralds,  and 


J 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       203 

have  been  called  to  leadership  and  command. 
But  the  leaders  did  not  create  the  party.  It 
was  the  ripe  issue  of  events.  It  came  out  of  the 
womb  of  time,  and  no  man  could  hinder  or 
hasten  the  event.  No  one  can  foretell  the  com 
ing  of  the  hour.  It  may  be  near  at  hand.  It  may 
be  otherwise.  But  if  it  should  come  quickly, 
we  may  be  sure  strong  leadership  will  be  there ; 
and  some  will  say  that  the  leaders  made 
the  party.  But  all  great  movements  in  society 
and  government,  the  world  over,  are  the  A 
result  of  growth.  Progress  may  seem  to  halt; 
we  may  even  seem  to  lose  ground,  but  it  is 
my  deep  conviction  that  it  is  our  duty  to  do,, 
day  by  day,  with  all  our  might,  as  best  we  can 
for  the  good  of  our  country  the  task  which  lies 
nearest  at  hand.  The  party  does  not  consist  of 
a  few  leaders  or  of  a  controlling  political  machine. 

It  consists   of  the    hundreds   of  thousands   of 

V 

citizens  drawn  together  by  a  common  belief  in 
certain  principles.  And  it  seemed  to  me  then 
that  it  ought  to  be  in  the  power  of  that  great 
body,  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  party, 
to  smash  the  machine,  to  defeat  corrupt  leaders 


204       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

and  to  drive  the  officials  of  every  rank  who 
betray  the  majority  out  of  public  life.  Con 
sidered  as  a  state  problem,  I  never  have  ques- 
x,  tioned  the  wisdom  of  our  course  in  remaining 
within  the  Republican  party. 

And  so,  in  the  campaign  of  1896,  I  know  that 
I  strengthened  our  movement  when  I  followed 
my  convictions  as  well  as  my  judgment,  and 
threw  myself  as  strongly  as  I  could  into  the  cam 
paign  for  the  election  of  McKinley  as  President. 

McKinley  carried  the  state  by  103,000;  Sco- 
field  by  nearly  95,000. 

In  the  summer  of  1897  I  concluded  to  try  the 
experiment  of  campaigning  for  reform  in  an  off 
year.  It  had  occurred  to  me  that  one  might 
obtain  a  better  hearing  from  people  of  all  parties 
when  they  were  not  in  the  heat  and  fever  of  a 
political  campaign. 

On  the  fourth  of  July,  1897,  I  delivered  an 
address  at  Mineral  Point  and  took  as  my  theme 
the  "  Dangers  Threatening  Representative  Gov 
ernment."  I  delivered  substantially  the  same 
address  at  Fern  Dell,  on  August  23d,  at  the 
Waukesha  fair,  and  on  September  24th  at  the 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       205 

State  Fair  in  Milwaukee.  These  speeches  were 
the  subject  of  much  controversy  throughout  the 
state.  The  fact  that  they  were  strongly  as 
sailed  by  the  corporation  press  served  only  to 
excite  interest  in  them,  and  I  received  many 
more  invitations  to  speak  than  it  was  possible 
for  me  to  accept. 

One  might  regard  a  county  fair  as  a  very  un 
suitable  place  to  secure  an  attentive  hearing 
upon  a  subject  seriously  treated,  but  in  all  my 
years  of  campaigning  I  think  I  never  made  any 
speeches  productive  of  better  results.  I  found 
people  everywhere  open-minded  and  eager. 
Almost  without  exception  those  in  attendance 
would  turn  from  the  amusements  and  give  me 
their  closest  and  best  attention.  I  found,  at 
every  such  fair,  representatives  of  almost  every 
township  of  the  county,  business  men  and  well- 
to-do  farmers,  who  took  away  with  them  for  dis 
cussion  and  consideration  the  matter  which  I 
submitted  in  the  address. 

The  opposition  criticised  the  fair  committees 
severely  for  setting  apart  a  day  for  the  appear 
ance  of  a  "demagogue  and  disturber"  upon 


206       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

their  grounds,  but  so  long  as  the  supporters  and 
patrons  of  the  association  over  the  county  were 
satisfied,  the  protests  of  the  machine  availed 
nothing.  I  was  made,  however,  to  feel  their 
displeasure  and  resentment  on  various  occasions. 
On  the  fair  grounds  at  Oshkosh,  which  was  the 
home  of  Senator  Sawyer,  a  determined  effort 
was  made  to  stop  my  address.  I  was  speaking 
from  a  farm  wagon  which  had  been  drawn  on  to 
the  race  track  between  the  pavilion  and  the 
judge's  stand.  I  had  scarcely  gotten  under  way 
with  my  address  when  the  bell  in  the  judge's 
stand  gave  the  usual  signal  for  starting  the  horse 
races.  Dozens  of  uniformed  boys  distributed 
through  the  audience  began  shouting,  "Score 
cards  for  sale;  score  cards  for  sale."  This  was 
followed  by  the  appearance  of  half  a  dozen  or 
more  horses  coming  on  to  the  track  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  away,  and  headed  directly  down  upon 
the  audience,  forcing  those  standing  upon  the 
track  to  stampede  to  places  of  safety.  I  saw 
that  I  must  act  quickly  or  lose  the  day,  and 
I  directed  that  the  wagon  in  which  I  was  stand 
ing  be  drawn  upon  the  track.  Then,  turning  to 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       207 

the  judge's  stand,  I  announced  thatJE  was  there 
on  the  invitation  of  the  association  to  deliver  an 
address,  and  that  I  should  not  budge  from  my 
place  until  I  had  finished  and,  if  again  inter 
rupted,  my  address  would  occupy  the  balance  of 
the  afternoon  to  the  exclusion  of  any  other  per 
formance  on  that  race  track.  I  think  not  fewer 
than  five  thousand  people  stood  up  and  cheered 
their  approval,  and  I  was  not  again  interrupted. 

In  the  fall  of  1897  a  few  of  the  friends  promi 
nently  associated  with  me  in  carrying  forward 
our  campaign,  bought  a  country  weekly  then 
published  at  Madison,  called  Old  Dane.  Being 
busy  men,  it  was  necessary  for  us  to  select  an  edi 
tor  for  this  paper,  and  the  choice  was  an  easy  one. 

From  the  very  beginning  of  our  contest  we 
had  not  only  the  support  of  practically  all  uni 
versity  men  throughout  the  state,  but  of  sub 
stantially  all  of  the  students  of  the  university 
old  enough  to  be  interested.  The  spirit  of 
democracy  pervaded  university  life,  and  a 
strong  body  of  these  fine,  clean,  brainy  fellows 
—  really  able  men  —  have  been  conspicuous  in 
all  the  Progressive  fights  of  Wisconsin  from  that 


208       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

day  to  this.  They  are  the  Progressive  leaders 
in  their  communities  throughout  the  common 
wealth,  and  are  filling  the  first  positions  in  our 
state  —  Assemblymen,  Senators,  the  Governor's 
office.  They  are  to  be  found  upon  the  commis 
sions,  in  journalism,  in  the  professions  —  not 
even  excepting  the  pulpit  —  all  earnestly  striv 
ing  for  civic  righteousness. \  One  of  the  ablest 
and  most  active  of  these  students  was  a  boyish- 
looking,  tow-headed  Norwegian  —  now  Con 
gressman  John  M.  Nelson — one  of  the  stanches t 
supporters  of  the  Progressive  movement.  He 
came  from  a  farm  in  the  town  of  Burke,  a  few 
miles  out  of  Madison.  He  had  taken  rank  as  a 
student  and  a  debater  in  the  university  society 
work,  and  was  one  of  the  many  students  who 
early  came  to  my  office  to  volunteer  his  services 
in  the  Haugen  campaign,  and  likewise  in  the 
campaign  of  1896.  He  accepted  the  position 
of  editor  of  Old  Dane,  the  name  of  which  we 
changed  to  The  State.  As  we  now  had  a  medium 
through  which  to  maintain  from  week  to  week  a 
campaign  of  education,  the  time  seemed  at  hand 
to  propose  a  constructive  program.  A  new 


209 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

heading  for  the  paper  was  designed,  which  set 
forth  the  following  platform: 

\/ 

Protection  for  the  products  of  the  factory 
and  the  farm. 

Sound  money,  a  dollar's  \vorth  of  dollar. 

Reciprocity  in  trade. 

Adequate  revenues  for  state  and  nation. 

Equal  and  just  taxation  of  all  the  property  of 
each  individual  and  every  corporation  trans 
acting  business  within  the  state. 

Abolish  caucuses  and  conventions.  Nomi 
nate  candidates  by  Australian  ballot  at  a  pri 
mary  election. 

Enact  and  enforce  laws  to  punish  bribery  in 
every  form  by  the  lobby  in  the  legislature  and 
wherever  it  assails  the  integrity  of  the  public 
service. 

Prohibit  the  acceptance  by  public  officials  of 
railroad  passes,  sleeping-car  passes,  express, 
telegraph,  and  telephone  franks. 

Enact  and  enforce  laws  making  character 
and  competency  the  requisite  for  service  in  our 
penal  and  charitable  institutions. 


210       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

Enact  and  enforce  laws  that  will  prohibit 
corrupt  practices  in  campaigns  and  elections. 

An  economical  administration  of  public  af 
fairs,  reducing  expenditures  to  a  business  basis. 

J 

From  the  beginning  the  circulation  of  the 
paper  rapidly  extended,  and  soon  we  had  readers 
in  every  part  of  the  state.  It  began  to  exert  a 
strong  influence  upon  public  sentiment. 

The  bosses  were  alarmed.  Here  was  a  pub 
lication  carrying  the  truth  week  by  week  into 
every  community.  Its  policy  could  not  be 
affected  in  any  way  —  neither  money,  adver 
tising,  nor  offices  would  divert  it  from  its  course. 
Something  must  be  done.  So  they  sought  to 
have  the  post-office  department  at  Washing 
ton  deny  the  paper  the  second-class  mail  privi-  , 
lege.  I  knew  that  the  affair  had  been  instigated 
by  Keyes  and  the  bosses,  and  I  wrote  the  de 
partment,  inviting  the  most  searching  inspec 
tion,  but  stating  what  I  knew  to  be  the  purpose 
back  of  the  attack.  Inspectors  from  Washing 
ton  took  possession  of  our  books,  and  made  a 
thorough  investigation.  I  do  not  know  what 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

they  reported,  but  no  order  came  from  the  post- 
office  department  denying  us  the  second-class 
privilege. 

In  the  meantime  we  were  not  only  actively 
at  work  with  our  political  propaganda  and  our 
efforts  to  overturn  the  machine,  but  we  were 
also  advancing  constructive  measures  of  various 
sorts  as  rapidly  as  we  could  get  them  to  the 
attention  of  the  people. 

^xQne  of  these  reforms  was  our  effort  fo  secure 
the  passage  of  a  law  preventing  railroad  com 
panies  from  giving  free  passes  to  political  leaders 
and  public  officials.  I  will  relate  the  details  of 
the  fight  to  secure  an  anti-pass  law  quite  fully 
here  because  it  shows  vividly  the  conditions  we 
had  to  meet. 

The  pass  abuse  had  grown  to  extraordinary 
proportions  in  Wisconsin,  and  the  power  to  give 
passes,  franks  on  telegraph  and  telephone  lines, 
free  passage  on  Pullman  cars,  and  free  transpor 
tation  by  express  companies  had  become  a  great 
asset  of  the  machine  politicians.  These  in 
sidious  privileges  went  far  toward  corrupting 
the  politics  of  the  state. 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

I  had  early  to  meet  the  problem  of  passes  in 
my  own  case.  In  1884,  as  soon  as  I  was  elected 
to  Congress,  several  railroads  sent  me  passes 
over  their  lines.  Although  there  was  then  little 
or  no  agitation  of  the  subject,  I  talked  the  whole 
matter  over  with  Sam  Harper  and  Judge  Sie- 
becker,  my  law  partners,  and  we  agreed  that  I 
must  keep  myself  absolutely  free  from  any 
obligations;  I  never  used  railroad  passes  while 
I  was  a  member  of  Congress,  nor  at  any  other 
time  while  I  held  a  public  office. 

In  1890  I  first  met  A.  R.  Hall,  to  whom,  more 
than  any  other  man,  belongs  the  credit  for  the 
enactment  of  the  strong  statute  finally  passed, 
after  nine  years'  struggle,  prohibiting  state 
officials  from  accepting,  using,  or  procuring 
passes  or  franks.  Hall  was  one  of  the  pioneers 
of  the  Wisconsin  movement.  I  never  knew  a 
better  man.  Plain,  modest,  without  guile, 
patient,  lovable,  tender-hearted,  his  whole  life 
was  so  simple,  so  unselfish,  so  humble  that  he 
was  sometimes  underrated.  He  feared  nothing 
except  to  do  wrong.  He  made  his  way  indif 
ferent  to  abuse  and  misrepresentation.  He  did 


ASSEMBLYMAN    A.    R.    HALL 

"Plain,   modest,   without   guile,   patient,   lovable,    tender-hearted,   his 
whole  life  was  so  simple,  so  unselfish,  so  humble,  that  he  was  some 
times  underrated." 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       213 

not  serve  the  hour.  He  was  not  afraid  to  break 
new  ground.  Fundamental  principles  appealed 
to  his  understanding.  He  was  a  man  of  strong 
convictions,  courageous  in  defeat,  fair  in  victory. 

Hall  came  to  me  in  the  spring  of  1891,  when 
I  returned  from  Congress  to  resume  my  law 
practice.  The  legislature  was  then  in  session. 
We  conferred  on  pending  measures,  and  from 
that  time  on  we  worked  together.  He  was  one  of 
our  leading  supporters  in  the  Haugen  campaign, 
and  headed  the  delegation  from  his  county. 

His  bill  for  the  abolition  of  passes  and  franks 
was  beaten  in  the  session  of  1891,  and  again  in 
1893.  At  the  Haugen  convention,  Hall  offered 
a  resolution  to  commit  the  party  against  the 
pass  evil,  but  the  machine  has  a  system  which 
takes  care  of  all  "crank"  resolutions.  As  soon 
as  a  convention  is  organized,  a  motion  is  adopted 
providing  that  all  resolutions  shall  be  referred, 
without  being  read  or  debated,  to  the  Commit 
tee  on  Resolutions,  thereafter  to  be  appointed. 
Hall's  resolution  went  to  the  committee,  but 
was  never  heard  from  after. 

But  this  did  not  stop  Hall.     He  was  ready 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

with  his  anti-pass  bill  when  the  legislature  of 
1895  convened.  To  aid  in  creating  public  sen 
timent  against  the  use  of  railway  passes  by 
members  of  the  legislature  and  other  officials, 
he  and  I  prepared  resolutions  which  were  printed 
and  placed  in  the  hands  of  reliable  men  in  prac 
tically  every  township  of  the  state.  These 
resolutions  were  offered  on  town-meeting  day, 
April,  1895,  and  generally  adopted  throughout 
the  state. 

During  the  legislative  session  of  1895  Hall 
made  a  speech  for  his  bill  with  the  usual  result. 
A  few  members  —  notably  James  O.  David 
son,  afterward  governor,  and  William  O'Niel, 
afterward  a  senator,  supported  him.  In  the 
meantime,  I  was  aiding  as  best  I  could  on  the 
platform  to  organize  public  sentiment  in  sup 
port  of  the  anti-pass  amendment.  And  public 
opinion  soon  began  to  respond.  Members  of 
the  legislature  found  themselves  confronted 
with  criticism  of  their  positions  on  this  legisla 
tion.  But  the  free  pass  and  the  telegraph  and 
telephone  frank  were  valuable  assets  for  the 
machine,  and  it  was  a  hard  fight. 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       215 

In  the  convention  of  1896  Hall  was  again 
ready  with  his  anti-pass  resolution.  It  was 
chloroformed  as  usual  by  the  Committee  on 
Resolutions,  but  afterward  on  the  floor  of  the 
convention,  when  vigilance  was  somewhat  re 
laxed,  Hall  seized  the  opportunity  and  again 
offered  his  anti-pass  resolution,  and  promptly 
moved  its  adoption.  It  was  a  dangerous  situa 
tion  for  the  machine.  It  is  one  thing  to  smother 
a  resolution  in  committee;  it  is  quite  another 
thing  to  vote  it  down  in  open  convention.  The 
vote  was  taken,  and  to  the  consternation  of  the 
bosses,  it  was  passed  with  cheers. 

But  it  was  a  barren  victory  so  far  as  actual 
results  were  concerned.  The  legislature  of 
1897  ignored  the  action  of  the  convention  and 
again  defeated  Hall's  anti-pass  bill.  More 
than  this,  the  bosses  and  their  henchmen  de 
nounced  it.  They  said  that  it  had  been  sprung 
on  the  convention;  that  it  had  not  been  con 
sidered  by  the  platform  committee;  that  the 
convention  that  passed  it  was  nothing  more  than 
a  mob ;  that  it  was  not  a  part  of  the  platform  and 
binding  on  nobody.  This  all  helped.  It  pro- 


216      STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

voked  discussion  and  controversy  everywhere, 
and  that  is  all  that  is  required  to  advance  any 
proposition  that  is  sound  and  right.  The  public 
was  now  thoroughly  aroused,  and  the  defeat  of 
the  anti-pass  bill  in  the  legislature  of  1897 
called  down  upon  those  responsible  for  it  the 
sharpest  criticism.  Then  a  discovery  was  made 
which  did  more  to  enable  us  to  destroy  the  pass 
bribery  system  than  anything  which  had  there 
tofore  occurred. 

H.  M.  Tusler,  the  Madison  agent  of  the  United 
States  Express  Company,  who  was  a  strong 
sympathizer  with  our  reform  movement,  as  are 
so  many  employees  of  corporations,  let  it  be 
known  that  Governor  Scofield  had  shipped  from 
his  home  in  Oconto,  in  the  northern  part  of  the 
state,  to  Madison,  the  capital,  in  the  southern 
part  of  the  state,  free  on  express  frank  No.  2169, 
the  following: 

January  7,  1897;  2  boxes,  2  barrels. 

January  8,  1897;  3  barrels,  1  box. 

January  9,  1897;  2  boxes,  200  pounds. 

January  11,  1897;  2  barrels,  2  boxes,  1,000 
pounds. 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES      217 

January  13,  1897;  1  cow  (crated). 

January  14,  1897;  1  box,  50  pounds;  1  box, 
26  pounds. 

February  2,  1897;  1  package. 

February  26,  1897;  a  package. 

March  26,  1897;  1  sewing  machine. 

March  26,  1897;  1  buggy  pole. 

August  26,  1897;  1  barrel  potatoes  (small). 

These  facts  were  published  in  The  State. 
It  was  no  answer  to  say  that  this  was  not  in 
violation  of  law.  It  raised  a  storm  of  mingled 
ridicule  and  resentment.  Scofield's  cow  became 
famous,  her  picture  appeared  in  the  newspapers/, 
and  she  came  to  be  known  in  every  home  in  the 
state. 

Finally,  in  the  session  of  1899,  Hall's  bill  was 
forced  through  the  legislature,  and  it  at  once 
cut  off  one  of  the  strong  props  of  the  boss  system 
in  Wisconsin.  In  the  death  of  Mr.  Hall  in  1905 
the  state  lost  a  true  patriot. 

I  come  now  to  the  campaign  of  1898.  We  had 
been  beaten  twice  already  —  in  1894  and  1896 
—  and  there  were  those  who  thought  it  unwise 
to  fight  the  renomination  of  Scofield  in  1898. 


218       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

Scofield  had  been  subservient  to  the  bosses 
in  all  things  throughout  his  administration. 
His  influence  had  been  exerted  in  the  legislature 
to  aid  in  defeating  compliance  with  the  anti- 
pass  resolution  adopted  by  the  convention 
which  nominated  him.  He  had  vetoed  two 
bills  taxing  express  companies  and  sleeping- 
car  companies  doing  business  within  the  state, 
upon  a  technicality.  Only  three  votes  were 
lacking  in  the  Senate  to  pass  these  bills  over  his 
veto.  But  the  precedent  of  a  second  term, 
usually  accorded  an  executive,  gave  him  a 
certain  advantage.  Many  of  my  friends  were 
apprehensive  that  if  I  were  defeated  again  it 
would  destroy  all  possibility  of  my  leadership 
thereafter,  and  they  urged  that  a  negative 
campaign  be  made  in  the  form  of  a  protest 
against  Scofield's  renomination,  but  that  we 
put  forward  no  candidate  of  our  own.  I  con 
tended  that  defeat  could  not  destroy  any  man 
whose  candidacy  was  based  upon  important 
principles;  that  vital  issues  were  never  destroyed 
by  defeat;  and  that  any  failure  upon  our  part 
to  oppose  the  machine  would  disintegrate  our 


SAMUEL   A.    HARPER 
"No  other  man  has  ever  been  so  completely  a  part  of  my  own  life." 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES       219 

forces,  and  greatly  delay  the  overthrow  of  the 
bosses.  I  offered 'my  support  to  any  recognized 
Progressive  who  would  lead  the  fight  as  a  can 
didate  for  governor,  but  insisted  with  all  the 
force  I  could  command  that  the  fight  must  be 
continued  unceasingly.  There  being  no  other 
candidate  willing  to  undertake  the  campaign,  I 
announced  my  candidacy. 

During  this  campaign  of  1898  I  felt  deeply 
the  loss  of  my  oldest  and  best  friend  and  sup 
porter.  March  12,  1898, 1  delivered  an  address 
on  the  Direct  Primary  at  the  University  of 
Michigan  at  Ann  Arbor.  Upon  my  return,  I 
was  shocked  to  find  my  law  partner,  Samuel  A. 
Harper,  desperately  ill  with  pneumonia.  I 
never  left  him,  day  or  night,  till  the  end  came. 
No  man  has  ever  been  so  completely  a  part  of 
my  own  life. 

The  three  weeks'  campaign  for  the  choice  of 
candidates  in  1898  was  one  of  the  fiercest  ever 
conducted  in  the  state.  Gilbert  E.  Roe,  my 
former  law  partner,  now  a  member  of  the  New 
York  bar,  rendered  excellent  service  in  that 
campaign.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Com- 


220      STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

mittee  on  Resolutions  in  the  convention  and 
led  the  fight  in  committee,  securing  the  adoption 
of  many  of  the  strongest  planks  of  our  progres 
sive  platform.  /When  the  convention  met  I 
should  have  been  nominated  on  the  first  ballot, 
except  for  the  use  of  money  with  delegates 
exactly  as  in  the  convention  of  1896.  Senator 
Stephenson,  then  a  Scofield  supporter  and  a 
power  in  the  old  organization,  stated  many 
times  to  my  friends  that  the  total  amount  of 
money  required  to  handle  delegates  the  night 
before  the  ballotting  began  was  $8,300.  I  was 
again  defeated. 

But  we  had  not  fought  wholly  in  vain:  we 
had  so  stirred  the  state  upon  progressive  issues 
that  our  opponents  did  not  dare  risk  the  rejection 
of  the  platform  which  we  presented,  and,  except 
in  one  or  two  particulars,  it  was  adopted  sub 
stantially  as  we  drafted  it. 

It  demanded  immediate  enactment  of  such 
laws  as  would  compel  all  corporations  engaged 
in  business  to  contribute  their  just  and  equal 
share  toward  the  burden  of  taxation. 

It   prohibited   the   giving   and   receiving   of 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

passes  and  franks,  and  demanded  that  it  be 
made  a  penal  offence,  both  as  to  the  giver  and 
receiver. 

It  admitted  the  defects  in  the  caucus  and  con-» 
vention  system,  and  favored  direct  primary  legis 
lation  to  secure  to  every  citizen  the  freest  expres 
sion  of  his  choice  in  the  selection  of  candidates. 

It  admitted  the  existence  of  the  lobby  to  con 
trol  legislation  in  the  interests  of  corporations, 
and  promised  laws  to  abolish  the  same. 

In  the  following  legislature,  of  1899,  none  of 
the  pledges  of  the  platform  of  1898,  aside  from 
the  anti-pass  law,  was  redeemed.  An  effort 
was  made  to  pass  a  bill  for  the  more  equitable 
taxation  of  the  railroads,  but  it  was  resisted  by 
a  strong  railroad  lobby  and  finally  defeated  by 
substituting  a  bill  for  the  creation  of  a  commis 
sion  to  investigate  the  subject.  Every  forward 
step  was  resisted. 

A  pretense  of  compliance  with  the  platform 
promise  of  direct  primaries  was  made  by  passing 
a  law  which  really  strengthened  and  entrenched 
the  caucus  and  convention  system.  The  bosses 


222       STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

thus  sought  to  fortify  their  position  for  the 
future. 

We  had  now  lost  out  in  three  campaigns  — 
1894,  1896,  1898.  But  we  had  tested  the 
machine  to  the  limit  of  its  strength,  and  we  were 
prepared  to  go  forward  with  the  fight  more 
vigorously  than  ever  before.  We  had  an  irre 
sistible  platform  of  principles  to  appeal  to  the 
democratic  spirit  of  the  people,  and  I  never 
doubted  that,  when  once  the  people  understood, 
they  would  drive  the  bosses  from  control  and 
reclaim  their  government. 

I  had  then,  and  have  had  ever  since,  absolute 
confidence  in  the  people.  The  question  was 
often  asked,  "How  do  you  expect  to  make  Wis 
consin  a  pioneer  progressive  state,  with  its 
foreign-born,  foreign-bred,  slow-moving  popula 
tion?"  True,  a  majority  of  the  people  of  Wis 
consin  are  of  foreign  birth  and  foreign  parent 
age.  But  it  is  a  rare  and  exceptional  people. 
The  spirit  of  liberty  stirring  throughout  Europe 
in  the  late  forties  and  early  fifties  gave  us  the 
best  of  Germany,  Scandinavia,  Poland,  Ireland. 
It  gave  us  Carl  Schurz  and  his  followers;  gave 


STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 

us  political  refugees  who  were  patriots  and 
hardy  peasants,  seeking  free  government  as  well 
as  homes.  An  organization  known  as  the  Ger 
man  Idealists  even  flooded  Germany  with  liter 
ature  urging  the  founding  of  a  free  German 
state  in  Wisconsin.  In  every  city  and  hamlet  in 
the  commonwealth  are  still  living  the  last  of 
these  pioneers.  And  as  a  heritage  to  their  chil 
dren  they  are  leaving  the  story  of  the  oppression 
which  forced  them  to  abandon  their  native 
lands  and  intensified  their  devotion  to  self- 
government.  Combined  with  the  Puritan  Yan 
kee  of  New  England,  these  sturdy  immigrants 
have  produced  a  courageous,  progressive  race 
of  men  in  wiiom  the  spirit  of  democracy  domi 
nates. 

Our  problem  was  further  simplified  owing  to 
the  predominance  of  the  agricultural  population 
and  the  absence  of  great  congested  centres, 
which  are  always  the  stronghold  of  machine 
control  through  a  corrupt  combination  of  big 
business  with  municipal  graft.  During  the  long 
winter  months  the  farmer  finds  time  for  reading 
and  thinking,  but  the  men  in  the  industries  must 


224  STRUGGLE  WITH  THE  BOSSES 
give  their  energies  more  exclusively  to  their 
employment  and  have  less  leisure  for  study  and 
reflection,  excepting  where  through  organization 
Jthey  are  securing  shorter  hours  and  better  op 
portunities.  To  the  character  of  the  people  of 
Wisconsin  I  attribute  the  progress  which  we 
were  able  to  make  against  machine  control. 

We  entered  upon  the  campaign  of  1900,  there 
fore,  in  which  we  were  destined  to  be  finally 
victorious,  with  great  enthusiasm. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MY  FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR  AND  THE  PROBLEMS 
I  HAD  TO  MEET 

THE  psychology  of  a  certain  type  of 
machine  politician  is  a  most  interesting 
study.  It  is  characteristic  of  him  to 
win  if  possible,  but  to  appear  to  win  in  any  event. 
He  has  a  quick,  almost  prophetic  eye  for  the 
loaded  wagon.  He  has  one  rule:  beat  the  op 
position  man,  but  if  he  cannot  be  beaten,  support 
him.  Claim  credit  for  his  victory,  and  at  all 
hazards,  keep  in  with  the  successful  candidate. 
He  believes  that  if  he  cannot  get  what  he  wants 
for  himself  by  opposing  a  candidate,  he  may 
possibly  succeed  in  getting  what  he  wants  by 
supporting  him. 

We  had  been  beaten  by  the  bosses  in  three  suc 
cessive  campaigns  in  Wisconsin;  but  when  we 
entered  the  campaign  of  1900,  the  cumulative 

225 


226         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

effect  of  our  previous  work  began  to  be  strongly 
apparent.  I  announced  my  candidacy  for  gov 
ernor  on  May  15th.  Several  candidates  were  at 
once  brought  out  by  the  machine  in  various 
parts  of  the  state  to  carry  their  own  and  nearby 
counties  with  a  view  to  combining  their  strength 
and  defeating  me  in  the  convention.  I  had 
therefore  to  make  a  hot  fight  against  each  of 
these  candidates  in  his  own  stronghold.  County 
after  county  was  carried,  and  the  evidences  of 
victory  soon  began  to  be  overwhelming. 

It  was  then  that  a  number  of  politicians  who 
had  been  opposed  to  our  cause,  among  them 
Congressman  Babcock,  his  friend,  Emanuel 
Phillipp,  and  Isaac  Stephenson,  now  United 
States  Senator,  joined  our  ranks  for  such  time 
as  suited  their  purposes. 

Isaac  Stephenson  is  a  man  eighty-two  years 
of  age.  Up  to  1900  he  had  always  cooperated 
with  the  old  Wisconsin  machine.  Like  Sawyer, 
he  was  a  typical  pioneer  lumberman,  who  had 
acquired  great  wealth  which  he  was  willing  to 
use  liberally  in  political  activities.  He  had 
never  enjoyed  any  educational  advantages,  but 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         227 

had  read  a  good  deal,  and  remembered  with 
remarkable  accuracy  all  the  details  of  his  active 
life.  He  served  six  years  in  the  House  of  Rep 
resentatives,  and  after  he  retired  at  the  end  of 
the  50th  Congress  his  political  associates 
gave  him  frequent  assurance  that  his  desire  to 
become  United  States  Senator  should  be  grati 
fied  in  good  time. 

When  the  legislature  of  1899  came  to  elect  a 
United  States  Senator,  Stephenson  felt  that  the 
hour  had  come  when  the  oft-repeated  promise 
should  be  made  good.  He  knew  that  a  word 
from  Sawyer  and  Spooner  would  settle  the 
matter,  but  that  word  was  not  spoken.  It  may 
be  that  they  had  never  intended  to  make 
Stephenson  Senator.  It  is  certain  that  there 
were  others  on  the  waiting  list  who  wanted  the 
Senatorship  and  who  also  expected  Sawyer  and 
Spooner  to  help  them.  One  of  these  was  Con 
gressman  Babcock,  a  machine  politician  with 
close  political  connections  with  big  business. 

Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Sawyer  and  Spooner 
did  not  want  either  Stephenson  or  Babcock  for 
Senator.  The  man  they  really  wanted  was  Henry 


228         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

C.  Payne,  but  his  reputation  as  a  lobbyist  and 
boss  politician  was  such  that  they  did  not  dare 
propose  him  openly.  They  supported  Joseph  V. 
Quarles  as  a  "holding  candidate."  No  oppor 
tunity  offering  for  Payne  they  finally  elected 
Quarles  Senator.  This  left  Stephenson  and  Bab- 
cock  in  an  unpleasant  frame  of  mind,  and  both  in 
less  than  two  years  came  to  me  with  propositions 
to  support  the  Progressive  movement,  which  by 
that  time  began  to  look  like  a  winning  cause. 

I  remember  distinctly  the  incident  which  pre 
ceded  Babcock's  alignment  with  us.  Colonel 
Henry  Casson,  then  Sergeant-at-Arms  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  at  Washington,  and 
an  old  friend  of  Babcock,  came  to  me  in  Jan 
uary,  1900. 

He  said:  "I  come  to  you  with  a  message 
from  Babcock.  He  asks  nothing  from  you.  But 
he  is  angry  with  the  old  crowd,  because  they  did 
not  treat  him  fairly  in  the  senatorial  contest. 
He  has  such  a  hold  upon  his  district  that  he 
feels  he  can  remain  in  Congress  without  asking 
the  favor  of  any  outside  support.  But  he  wants 
to  fight  in  your  ranks  as  a  private." 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         229 

"Well,"  I  replied,  "you  know  what  I  am 
fighting  for  in  this  state.  You  know  that  I  am 
standing  for  certain  issues,  and  am  welcoming 
all  the  help  that  I  can  get." 

Another  machine  man  who  also  apparently 
enlisted  in  the  reform  movement  in  that  cam 
paign  was  Emanuel  L.  Phillipp,  of  Milwaukee, 
a  close  friend  of  Babcock.  Phillipp  was  born 
of  Swiss  parentage,  with  Italian  ancestry.  Big, 
heavy,  swarthy,  adroit,  self-possessed,  deter 
mined,  but  mild  and  conciliatory  in  manner, 
Phillipp  was  an  out-and-out  corporation  man. 
But  in  the  campaign  of  1900,  he  with  others  of 
his  type  professed  to  have  reached  the  conclusion 
that  there  were  abuses  to  reform  and  that  the 
railroads  and  other  interests  recognized  this  to 
be  so.  They  were  apprehensive  that  I  was 
hostile  to  railroad  corporations  and  would,  if 
governor,  seek  to  embarrass  them  in  every 
conceivable  way.  Mr.  Babcock  and  Mr.  Phil 
lipp  assured  me  that  they  did  not  share  in  this 
opinion  regarding  my  position;  and  that  they 
very  much  wished  my  true  position  might  be 
made  known.  They  suggested  that  Mr.  Marvin 


230         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

Hughitt,  President  of  the  Chicago  and  North 
western  Railroad  Company,  would  like  to  have 
from  me  directly  a  personal  statement  of  my 
purposes.  I  replied  that  I  knew  of  no  reason 
why  I  should  shrink  from  stating  my  convictions 
upon  any  question  of  public  interest.  When  I 
informed  A.  R.  Hall  of  the  proposal  he  opposed 
my  seeing  Mr.  Hughitt  on  the  ground  that  it  was 
the  purpose  of  these  gentlemen  to  draw  me  into 
an  interview,  then  cause  the  matter  to  be  made 
public  for  the  purpose  of  arousing  popular 
prejudice.  I  suggested  that  if  the  President  of 
the  Wisconsin  Dairymen's  Association,  or  the 
representative  of  any  other  business  interest, 
requested  a  conference  for  the  purpose  of  as 
certaining  my  position  upon  legislation  which 
might  affect  their  interests,  I  would  agree  to 
such  an  interview  as  a  matter  of  course.  To 
refuse  to  submit  my  opinions  under  such  cir 
cumstances  would  tend  to  justify  the  belief  that 
I  had  some  ulterior  design. 

When  the  subject,  therefore,  was  next  brought 
up  I  agreed  to  meet  Mr.  Hughitt  provided  ex- 
Governor  Hoard  might  be  present. 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         231 

At  the  appointed  time,  Governor  Hoard, 
Mr.  Hughitt,  Mr.  Babcock  and  I  met  in  the 
offices  of  Mr.  Hughitt  in  Chicago.  Mr.  Hugh 
itt  began  by  telling  us  how  he  started  in  life 
as  a  telegraph  messenger  boy,  and  took  up  most 
of  the  time  reviewing  his  career.  It  appeared 
that  this  much  desired  interview  was  to  begin 
and  end  with  a  recital  of  Mr.  Hughitt's  early 
struggles  from  poverty  to  affluence  and  power. 
But  Babcock  knew  what  the  interview  was  for, 
and  presently  suggested  that  Mr.  La  Follette 
was  reasonably  certain  to  be  elected  governor 
of  Wisconsin  and  that  Mr.  Hughitt  might  be 
interested  to  know  his  attitude  toward  railroad 
corporations.  Mr.  Hughitt  promptly  replied 
that  he  had  no  doubt  that  Mr.  La  Follette  would 
be  perfectly  fair  in  his  treatment  of  their  im 
portant  interests  in  Wisconsin.  It  seemed  my 
time  now  to  speak,  and  I  said: 

"Mr.  Hughitt,  I  believe  I  shall  be  elected 
governor  and  I  can  state  in  a  very  few  words 
my  position  upon  the  pressing  question  of  rail 
road  taxation.  I  shall,  if  elected,  recommend, 
and,  if  given  the  opportunity,  shall  approve 


232         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

a  bill  taxing  railroad  companies  upon  the  value 
of  their  property,  just  as  other  taxpayers  of 
Wisconsin  are  assessed  and  taxed  upon  their 
property." 

Mr.  Hughitt  answered,  with  a  wave  of  the 
hand,  which  dismissed  the  subject,  "That  is 
perfectly  satisfactory  to  the  Northwestern," 
and  that  ended  the  interview.  As  I  came  away 
I  was  somewhat  at  a  loss  to  know  just  what  was 
the  real  significance  of  the  meeting,  but  Mr. 
Bab  cock  seemed  to  attach  a  good  deal  of  im 
portance  to  it  and  said,  "Well,  Hughitt  will 
feel  better  now  that  he  has  seen  you.  You 
ought  to  call  on  him  whenever  you  are  in  Chi 
cago.  He  will  always  be  glad  to  see  you." 

I  have  never  met  President  Hughitt  since. 
I  thought  then  and  still  think  that  Mr.  Hughitt 
had  been  informed  that  my  election  as  governor 
could  not  be  headed  off;  that  Babcock  and 
Phillipp  were  supporting  me  and  proposed  to 
maintain  such  friendly  relations  as  would  give 
them  a  footing,  if  possible,  and  influence  with 
the  administration  whenever  critical  situations 
arose  affecting  railroad  interests. 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         233 

Although  these  old  machine  leaders  thus  came 
to  the  support  of  the  party  ticket  in  1900,  it  is 
questionable  whether  on  the  whole  their  alliance 
was  not  more  harmful  than  helpful  to  me  with 
the  public.  Their  support  not  only  gave  us  no 
additional  delegates,  but  it  put  us  off  our  guard 
in  campaigning  for  a  really  progressive  legisla 
ture  —  as  we  learned  later  to  our  cost. 

I  had  another  supporter  with  railroad  affil 
iations  in  this  campaign,  but  his  support  was 
genuine.  This  was  Thomas  H.  Gill,  General 
Attorney  for  the  Wisconsin  Central  Railway 
Company.  We  were  old-time  friends,  and  he 
had  supported  my  candidacy  for  governor  in 
1896  and  1898,  asserting  his  claim  to  the  free 
exercise  of  his  political  rights  when  questioned 
about  his  action  by  the  company. 

One  evening  in  May,  1900,  just  before  I  made 
formal  announcement  of  my  candidacy,  we  were 
in  Gill's  rooms  in  Milwaukee,  discussing  the 
political  situation  in  the  state,  when  he  said, 
"Bob,  the  president  (meaning  the  president  of 
the  railway  company  with  which  he  was  con 
nected)  called  me  in  to-day  to  inquire  definitely 


234         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

as  to  your  views  on  railroad  taxation,  and  I 
defined  your  position  as  I  understand  it." 
"Just  how  did  you  state  it,  Tom? "  I  asked.  He 
gave  me  the  substance  of  his  conversation  with 
the  president  and  inquired,  "Was  I  not  right?" 
"Well,"  I  said,  "you  were  partially  right."  I 
then  stated  to  him  as  clearly  as  I  could  the 
legislation  which  I  thought  ought  to  be  enacted 
as  to  the  taxation  of  railroad  property  in  fairness 
to  the  people  of  the  state,  and  the  subject  was 
dropped  for  the  evening. 

But  later  that  night,  thinking  it  over,  I  decided 
it  would  be  better  to  .put  my  position  in  writing 
as  a  precaution  against  any  possible  future 
misunderstanding.  Early  next  morning  I  drafted 
my  letter  to  Tom  and  delivered  it  to  him 
personally  that  same  day,  saying  to  him,  "There, 
Tom,  you  are  at  liberty  to  show  that  to  any 
railroad  official,  or  to  publish  it  if  you  want 
to.  That  is  where  I  stand  now,  and  where  I 
shall  stand  after  I  am  governor,  if  I  should  be 
nominated  and  elected."  He  took  the  letter, 
saying  laughingly,  "That's  all  right,"  although 
he  did  not  think  it  necessary. 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         235 

When  the  railroad  taxation  bill  came  up  in 
the  legislature,  rumors  began  to  be  heard  about 
the  railroads  having  an  agreement  in  writing 
with  me  on  that  subject,  which  would  be  made 
public  sooner  or  later  to  my  great  embarrass 
ment.  Some  of  my  friends  came  to  me,  very 
much  disturbed  over  the  story,  but  my  only 
answer  was,  "You  invite  any  one  who  asserts 
that  there  is  such  a  statement  signed  by  me  to 
publish  it." 

The  letter  had  quite  a  career.  It  bobbed  up 
at  intervals  for  four  years.  I  could  have  given 
it  to  the  press  at  any  time,  but  I  chose  to  hold 
it  in  reserve,  preferring  to  publish  it  at  a  time 
when  I  could  use  it  most  effectively  as  an  ex 
ample  of  our  opponents'  perversion  of  the  truth. 
In  October,  1904,  in  my  last  campaign  for  Gover 
nor,  when  the  opposition  again  revived  the  story 
of  my  "written  agreement  with  the  railroads,"  I 
gave  this  famous  letter  to  the  public..  Here  it  is: 

MADISON,  WLS.,  May  12,  1900. 
DEAR  TOM: 

You  have  been  my  personal  and  political 
friend  for  twenty  years.  Should  I  become  a 


236         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

candidate  for  the  nomination  for  governor,  I 
want  your  continued  support,  if  you  can  con 
sistently  accord  it  to  me.  But  you  are  the 
attorney  for  the  Wisconsin  Central  R.R.  Co., 
and  I  am  not  willing  that  you  should  be  placed 
in  any  position  where  you  could  be  subjected  to 
any  criticism  or  embarrassment  with  your  em 
ployers  on  my  account.  For  this  reason  I  desire 
to  state  to  you  in  so  far  as  I  am  able  my  position 
in  relation  to  the  question  of  railway  taxation, 
which  has  now  become  one  of  public  interest, 
and  is  very  likely  to  so  continue  until  rightly 
settled.  This  I  can  do  in  a  very  few  words. 

Railroad  corporations  should  pay  neither 
more  nor  less  than  a  justly  proportionate  share 
of  taxes  with  the  other  taxable  property  of  the 
state.  If  I  were  in  a  position  to  pass  officially 
upon  a  bill  to  change  existing  law,  it  would  be 
my  first  care  to  know  whether  the  rate  therein 
proposed  was  just  in  proportion  to  the  property 
of  other  corporations  and  individuals  as  then 
taxed,  or  as  therein  proposed  to  be  taxed.  The 
determination  of  that  question  would  be  con 
trolling.  If  such  rate  was  less  than  the  justly 
proportionate  share  which  should  be  borne  by 
the  railroads,  then  I  should  favor  increasing  it 
to  make  it  justly  proportionate.  If  the  pro 
posed  rate  was  more  than  the  justly  propor 
tionate  share,  in  comparison  with  the  property 
of  other  corporations,  and  of  individuals  taxed 
under  the  law,  then  I  should  favor  decreasing 
it  to  make  it  justly  proportionate. 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 


237" 


In  other  words,  I  would  favor  equal  and 
exact  justice  to  each  individual  and  to  every 
interest,  yielding  neither  to  clamor  on  the  one  \J 
hand,  nor  being  swerved  from  the  straight 
course  by  any  interest  on  the  other.  This 
position,  I  am  sure,  is  the  only  one  which 
could  commend  itself  to  you,  and  cannot  be 
criticised  by  any  legitimate  business  honestly 

managed.  0.          , 

bincerely  yours, 

ROBERT  M.  LA  FOLLETTE. 

Success,  for  a  new  movement,  often  presents 
quite  as  serious  problems  as  defeat.  Not  only 
had  we  to  deal  with  that  part  of  the  old  machine 
element  which  now  offered  to  support  us  with 
protestations  of  confidence,  but  we  had  also 
to  hold  back  and  keep  together  the  enthusiasts 
in  our  own  ranks. 

As  soon  as  my  nomination  in  1900  was  a 
foregone  conclusion  and  I  began  to  think  of 
what  our  convention  platform  should  be  and 
what  we  should  try  to  do  in  our  first  legisla 
ture  these  problems  within  our  own  ranks  began 
to  concern  me.  For  example,  one  of  the  strong 
est  and  ablest  men  among  us  was  A.  R.  Hall, 
who  had  been  so  persistent  in  his  efforts  to 


238         FIRST  TERM  Ao  v      vERNOR 

obtain  anti-pass  legislation.  He  was  now  mak 
ing  a  dogged  fight  for  a  railroad  commission  to 
regulate  rates.  Each  session  he  would  introduce 
a  bill,  make  a  speech  upon  it  if  possible,  and  see 
it  go  down  to  defeat.  He  did  not  expect  to 
pass  a  bill,  indeed  his  bill  was  not  such  a  measure 
as  I  should  have  been  willing  to  make  a  fight  for 
as  a  law  covering  that  subject.  But  it  served 
a  good  purpose  in  keeping  the  matter  before  the 
legislature. 

Now,  I  was  as  keen  for  railway  regulation  in 
Wisconsin  as  any  one  could  well  be.  I  had  been 
deeply  interested  in  the  problem  as  a  boy  when 
it  was  the  leading  state  issue  in  the  Granger 
period,  and  had  become  a  real  student  of  the 
subject  as  a  member  of  the  House  of  Represen 
tatives  in  1886  and  1887.  It  had  an  important 
place  in  my  plans  for  a  comprehensive  state 
program.  But  as  a  matter  of  tactics,  I  did  not 
consider  it  wise  to  bring  it  forward  for  immediate 
and  serious  consideration.  In  our  campaigns 
J  we  had  emphasized  two  issues  chiefly:  direct 
grimaries  and  EajLroad^t axartkm .  We  had  found 
it  important  to  keep  the  field  of  discussion  nar- 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         239 

rowed  to  the  subjects  which  could  be  ad 
equately  treated  in  a  single  address.  We  had 
tried  to  make  the  people  masters  of  these  two 
issues,  and,  as  events  proved,  we  had  succeeded. 
If  we  now  attacked  the  larger  problem  of  rail 
road  regulation,  as  Hall  urged  us  to  do,  we  should 
have  too  many  issues  to  present  clearly  and 
thoroughly  to  the  people  in  one  campaign  and 
would  arouse  the  doubly  bitter  opposition  of  the 
railroads.  The  railroads  had  begun  to  see  that 
some  reform  in  taxation  was  inevitable,  and 
wrhile  they  would  certainly  resist  to  the  end, 
they  believed,  secretly,  that  they  could  pass  on 
any  increase  in  their  taxes  to  the  public  by  in 
creasing  their  rates.  We  might,  therefore,  get 
a  taxation  law,  but  if  we  proposed  also  to  push 
railroad  regulation  at  that  time  and  assert  the 
powrer  of  the  state  to  fix  rates,  the  railroads 
would  call  to  their  support  all  the  throng  of 
shippers  who  were  then  receiving  rebates,  and 
would  probably  defeat  all  our  railroad  measures. 
If  we  centred  on  railroad  taxation  alone,  of 
course  we  should  have  with  us,  quietly  if  not 
openly,  all  the  big  shippers  and  manufacturers 


240         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

who  knew  perfectly  well  that  railroad  taxes 
should  be  increased  and  that  such  increases 
would  tend  to  reduce  the  proportion  which  they 
had  to  pay. 

I  therefore  took  time  from  the  campaign  and 
arranged  a  meeting  with  Hall  at  Haugen's  home 
in  River  Falls.  I  presented  the  case  strongly 
to  him,  urging  him  not  to  offer  his  resolution 
calling  for  railroad  regulation  at  the  convention. 
I  did  not  want  the  convention  to  go  on  record 
against  a  thing  we  were  all  in  favor  of.  We 
were  the  best  of  friends,  Hall  and  I.  He  was 
a  constant  visitor  in  our  home  and  every  member 
of  the  family  loved  him.  But  he  was  very  in 
sistent  about  pushing  his  measure  in  season  and 
out;  he  wanted  to  make  a  record,  and  he  thought 
that  the  fight  should  be  unremitting.  Finally, 
however,  he  promised  to  withhold  his  resolu 
tion,  and  I  believe  we  made  better  progress  in 
the  long  run  by  building  our  structure  of  reform 
step  by  step.  I  have  always  felt  that  the  polit 
ical  reformer,  like  the  engineer  or  the  architect, 
must  know  that  his  foundations  are  right.  To 
build  the  superstructure  in  advance  of  that  is 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         241 

likely  to  be  disastrous  to  the  whole  thing.  He 
must  not  put  the  roof  on  before  he  gets  the  under 
pinning  in.  And  the  underpinning  is  education 
of  the  people. 

In  the  convention  which  followed,  in  August, 
1900,  I  was  unanimously  nominated  for  gover 
nor,  and  in  November  the  state  gave  me  the 
largest  majority  ever  given  up  to  that  time  to  a 
gubernatorial  candidate.  On  January  7,  1901, 
I  took  the  oath  of  office. 

Up  to  the  time  that  the  legislature  met  on 
January  9th,  I  felt  that  we  should  be  able  to  go 
forward  steadily  with  the  reforms  for  which  the 
people  of  the  state  had  declared.  I  even  felt 
that  the  machine  politicians  who  came  to  me 
offering  their  support  were  really  convinced  that 
the  reforms  we  demanded  were  inevitable  and 
that  they  would  no  longer  oppose  them.  I 
was  yet  to  learn  the  length  to  which  the  corpora 
tions  and  the  machine  politicians  who  repre 
sented  them  would  go  in  their  efforts  to  defeat 
our  measures.  They  now  carried  out  openly 
their  plans  for  stealing  the  legislature. 

When  the  legislature  met  there  was  a  general 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

gathering  of  the  machine  leaders  at  the  capital. 
They  attended  my  inauguration  and  there  was 
no  manifestation  of  hostile  purposes.  But 
forty-eight  hours  afterward  the  mask  was  [off. 
The  newspapers  on  the  morning  of  January  9th 
contained  the  startling  announcement  that  the 
"Stalwart"  Republicans  (as  the  machine  ele 
ment  of  the  party  now  for  the  first  time  called 
themselves)  were  in  control  of  the  senate  and 
that  they  proposed  to  fight  the  administration 
measures.  This  was  the  first  intimation  we 
had  that  the  old  leaders  were  secretly  planning 
to  defeat  the  legislation  pledged  in  the  platform. 
It  was  a  great  shock  to  us.  I  found  it  hard  to 
believe  that  men  elected  upon  issues  so  clearly 
presented  would  have  the  hardihood  to  turn 
about  so  quickly. 

Our  friends  were  in  undisputed  control  of  the 
lower  house  of  the  legislature,  the  assembly, 
and  after  a  hasty  conference  we  decided  to  pay 
no  attention  to  the  sinister  reports  regarding 
the  senate,  hoping  that  they  might  not  be  true. 

All  the  governors  before  me,  so  far  as  I  know, 
had  sent  in  their  messages  to  the  legislature  to 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         243 

be  mumbled  over  by  a  reading  clerk.  I  knew 
that  I  could  make  a  very  much  stronger  impres 
sion  with  my  recommendations  if  I  could  present 
my  message  in  person  to  the  legislature  in  joint 
session.  I  felt  that  it  would  invest  the  whole 
matter  with  a  new  seriousness  and  dignity  that 
would  not  only  affect  the  legislators  themselves, 
but  react  upon  the  public  mind.  This  I  did: 
and  in  consequence  awakened  a  wide  interest 
in  my  recommendations  throughout  the  state. 

The  predominant  notes  in  the  message  were 
direct  primaries  and  railroad  taxation  —  one 
political  and  one  economic  reform. 

The  railroads  at  that  time  paid  taxes  in  the 
form  of  a  license  fee  upon  their  gross  earnings. 
The  report  of  the  Tax  Commission  showed  that 
while  real  property  in  Wisconsin  paid  1.19  per 
cent,  of  its  market  value  in  taxes,  the  railroads 
paid  only  .53  per  cent,  of  their  market  value 
(based  on  the  average  value  of  stocks  and  bonds) 
or  less  than  one  half  the  rate  paid  by  farmers, 
manufacturers,  home  owners  and  others.  Upon 
this  showing  we  contended  that  the  railroads 
were  not  bearing  their  fair  share  of  the  burdens 


244         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

of  the  state.  The  Tax  Commission  suggested 
two  measures  of  reform.  One  of  their  bills 
provided  for  a  simple  increase  in  the  license  tax, 
the  other  provided  for  a  physical  valuation  of 
the  railroads  and  a  wholly  new  system  of  tax 
ation  upon  an  ad  valorem  basis,  measures  which 
I  had  earnestly  advocated  in  my  campaign 
speeches,  and  recommended  in  my  message.  I 
regarded  this  latter  as  the  more  scientific  method 
of  taxation.  The  Commission  stated  that  while 
they  had  so  framed  the  bills  as  to  err  on  the  side 
of  injustice  to  the  people  rather  than  to  the 
railroads,  the  passage  of  either  of  them  would 
mean  an  increase  of  taxes  paid  by  railroads  and 
other  public  service  corporations  of  more  than 
three  quarters  of  a  million  dollars  annually. 

No  sooner  had  the  taxation  and  direct  pri 
mary  bills  been  introduced  than  the  lobby 
gathered  in  Madison  in  full  force.  Lobbyists 
had  been  there  before,  but  never  in  such  numbers 
or  with  such  an  organization.  I  never  saw  any 
thing  like  it.  The  railroads,  threatened  with 
the  taxation  bills,  and  the  bosses,  threatened  by 
the  direct  primary,  evidently  regarded  it  as  the 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR        245 

death  struggle.  Not  only  were  the  regular 
lobbyists  in  attendance  but  they  made  a  practice 
during  the  entire  winter  of  bringing  in  delegations 
of  more  or  less  influential  men  from  all  parts  of 
the  state,  some  of  whom  often  remained  two  or 
three  weeks  and  brought  every  sort  of  pressure 
to  bear  on  the  members  of  the  legislature.  The 
whole  fight  was  centred  upon  me  personally. 
They  thought  that  if  they  could  crush  me,  that 
would  stop  the  movement.  How  little  they 
understood!  Even  if  they  had  succeeded  in 
eliminating  me,  the  movement,  which  is  funda 
mental,  would  still  have  swept  on !  They  sought 
to  build  up  in  the  minds  of  the  people  the  fear 
that  the  executive  was  controlling  the  legislative 
branch  of  the  government.  They  deliberately 
organized  a  campaign  of  abuse  and  misrepresen 
tation.  Their  stories  were  minutely  detailed 
and  spread  about  among  the  hotels  and  on  rail 
road  trains.  They  said  that  I  Had  completely 
lost  my  head.  They  endeavored  to  give  me  a 
reputation  for  discourtesy  and  browbeating; 
stories  were  told  of  my  shameless  treatment  of 
members,  of  my  backing  them  up  against  the 


246         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

wall  of  the  executive  office,  shaking  my  fist  in 
their  faces  and  warning  them  if  they  did  not 
pass  our  bills  I  would  use  all  my  power  to  crush 
them.  In  so  far  as  anything  was  said  in  dis 
paragement  of  the  administration  members  of 
the  legislature  it  was  that  they  were  sycophants 
who  took  their  orders  every  morning  from  the 
executive  office.  The  newspapers,  controlled 
by  the  machine  interests,  began  to  print  these 
abusive  statements  and  sent  them  broadcast. 
At  first  we  took  no  notice  of  their  campaign  of 
misrepresentation,  but  it  grew  and  grew  until 
it  got  on  the  nerves  of  all  of  us.  It  came  to 
be  a  common  thing  to  have  one  after  another 
of  my  friends  drop  in  and  say:  "Governor,  is  it 

true  that  you  have  had  a  row  with ?  Is  it 

true  that  you  ordered out  of  the  executive 

office?" 

It  seems  incredible,  as  I  look  back  upon  it 
now,  that  it  could  be  humanly  possible  to  create 
such  an  atmosphere  of  distrust.  We  felt  that 
we  were  fighting  something  in  the  dark  all  the 
while;  there  was  nothing  we  could  get  hold  of. 

In  spite  of  it  all,  however,  we  drove  straight 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         247 

ahead.  After  the  bills  prepared  by  the  Tax 
Commission  were  in,  the  primary  election  bill 
was  drafted  and  redrafted  and  introduced  by 
E.  Ray  Stevens  of  Madison,  one  of  the  ablest 
men  ever  in  public  life  in  Wisconsin,  and  now 
a  judge  of  the  circuit  court  of  the  state.  The 
committee  having  it  in  charge  at  once  began  a 
series  of  open  meetings,  and  the  lobby  brought 
to  Madison  people  from  every  part  of  the  state 
to  attend  the  hearings  and  to  protest.  Ex 
tended  speeches  were  made  against  it,  and 
these  were  promptly  printed  and  sent  broad 
cast.  The  most  preposterous  arguments  were 
advanced.  They  argued  that  the  proposed 
law  was  unconstitutional  because  it  interfered 
with  the  "right  of  the  people  to  assemble!" 
They  tried  to  rouse  the  country  people  bts 
arguing  that  it  favored  the  cities;  they  said 
that  city  people  could  get  out  more  readily 
to  primaries  than  country  people.  It  did 
not  seem  to  occur  to  them  that  practically 
every  argument  they  made  against  the  direct 
primary  applied  far  more  strongly  to  the  old 
caucus  and  convention  svstem. 


248         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

But  we  fought  as  vigorously  as  they,  and 
presently  it  began  to  appear  that  we  might  get 
some  of  our  measures  through.  It  evidently 
made  an  impression  on  the  lobby.  One  night, 
after  the  legislature  had  been  in  session  about 
two  months,  Emanuel  Phillipp  came  to  my  office. 
He  moved  his  chair  up  close  to  mine. 

"Now,  look  here,"  he  said,  "you  want  to  pass 
the  primary  election  bill,  don't  you?  I  will 
help  you  put  it  through." 

"Phillipp,"  I  said,  "there  is  no  use  in  you  and 
me  trying  to  mislead  each  other.  I  understand 
and  you  understand  that  the  senate  is  organized 
against  both  the  direct  primary  and  taxation 
bills.  You  know  that  better  than  I  do." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "now  look  here.  This  rail- 
t)ad  taxation  matter  —  wouldn't  you  be  willing 
co  let  that  go  if  you  could  get  your  primary  bill 
through?  What  good  will  it  do  you,  anyhow, 
to  increase  railroad  taxation?  We  can  meet 
that  all  right  just  by  raising  rates  or  by  changing 
a  classification  here  and  there.  No  one  will  know 
it  and  we  can  take  back  every  cent  of  increased 
taxes  in  rates  from  the  people." 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR        249 

"Phillipp,"  I  said,  "you  have  just  driven  in 
and  clinched  the  argument  for  regulating  your 
rates.  And  that  is  the  next  thing  we  are  going 
to  do.  No,"  I  said,  "  these  pledges  are  straight 
promises." 

"But,"  he  argued,  "if  you  can  get  this  pri 
mary  election  bill  through  you  will  have  done  a 
great  thing.  And  I  will  pass  it  for  you,  if  you 
will  let  up  on  railroad  taxation." 

"Just  how  will  you  pass  it?"  I  asked. 

"How  will  I  pass  it?"  he  repeated.  "How 
will  I  pass  it?  Why,  I'll  take  those  fellows  over 
to  a  room  in  the  Park  Hotel,  close  the  door  and 
stand  them  up  .against  the  wall.  And  I'll  say 
to  them,  'You  vote  for  the  primary  election 
bill!'  And  they'll  vote  for  it,  because  I  own 
them,  they're  mine!"  And  this  was  Phillipp's 
last  interview  with  me. 

Still  other  and  even  more  desperate  measures 
were  resorted  to  as  the  fight  advanced.  I  have 
already  spoken  of  the  manner  in  which  the 
machine  had  secured  control  of  most  of  the 
newspapers  of  the  state,  but  there  was  still  one 
great  independent  newspaper  in  Milwaukee  — 


250         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

the  Sentinel.  It  had  been  controlled  and  edited 
by  Horace  Rublee,  one  of  that  older  group  of 
independent  journalists  which  included  such 
men  as  Joseph  Medill,  Charles  A.  Dana,  Horace 
Greeley  and  Henry  J.  Raymond.  Rublee  was 
temperamentally  cold  and  dispassionate,  but 
endowed  with  a  keen  intellect  and  the  highest 
sense  of  honor.  He  treated  everything  from 
the  heights.  He  never  hesitated  to  assail  cor 
ruption  wherever  it  existed,  even  in  the  Repub 
lican  party.  After  Horace  Rublee's  death,  the 
Sentinel  continued  to  be  a  thorn  in  the  flesh  of 
the  bosses.  It  attacked  Payne  and  Pfister  so 
sharply  for  the  way  in  which  they  were  running 
the  politics  of  Milwaukee,  that  they  finally 
brought  libel  suits  against  it  for  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  dollars.  The  managers  of  the 
paper  stood  their  ground  and  served  notice  that 
they  would  answer  and  prove  their  charges. 
Then  suddenly  the  people  of  Milwaukee  learned 
that  the  Sentinel  had  been  sold  for  an  immense 
sum  to  Pfister. 

Thus  the  bosses  gained  control  of  the  chief 
organ  of  public  opinion  in  our  greatest  city: 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR        251 

the  people  were  left  with  no  large  English-speak 
ing  Republican  daily  to  fight  for  their  cause 
The  long  series  of  abuses  that  arose  under  a  cf" 
government  controlled  by  political  rings  in  b(er 
parties  for  the  benefit  of  ringsters  —  that,  in  rn 
view,  has  led  to  the  .Socialist  ^prising  in  Mil 
waukee. 

Hardly  had  the  news  of  the  transfer  of  the 
Sentinel  been  made  public  than  I  was  afforded 
strong  evidence  of  its  intentions  for  the  future. 
Mr.  Warren,  who  had  been  editor  of  the  Chicago 
Inter-Ocean  when  it  was  the  organ  of  Charles 
T.  Yerkes  of  franchise  fame,  was  appointed 
editor  of  the  Sentinel.  And  one  of  the  first 
things  he  did  was  to  come  to  Madison  and  call 
on  me  at  the  executive  office. 

"Governor  La  Follette,"  he  said,  "I  suppose 
you  are  aware  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Pfister  is  now 
the  owner  of  the  Milwaukee  Sentinel" 

I  told  him  I  had  heard  such  a  report. 

"I  suppose  you  know,"  he  said,  "the  power 
of  the  Sentinel  in  state  politics.  I  have  come 
to  see  you  by  Mr.  Pfister's  direction,  to  say  to 
you  that  the  paper  prefers  to  support  your 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

administration  and  will  do  so  provided  you 
Lliange  your  attitude  on  the  subject  of  primary 
im?tions  and  railroad  taxation.  If  the  Sentinel 
meposes  your  administration,  you  will  be  de- 
G-ated  and  retired  to  private  life.  You  are  a 
young- ir?n.  Yrj  are  popular  with  the  people. 
With  the  support  of  the  Sentinel  you  can  have  a 
successful  career." 

He  then  went  on  to  argue  that  the  people  were 
not  fit  to  make  their  own  nominations,  which  led 
to  a  considerable  discussion  of  the  direct  pri 
mary.  "If  you  will  let  up,"  he  said  finally, 
"the  legislature  will  be  taken  care  of." 

"Mr.  Warren,"  I  said,  "I  have  campaigned 
this  state  for  direct  nominations  and  equal 
taxation  for  several  years.  The  convention 
which  nominated  me  adopted  a  platform  specifi 
cally  promising  that  these  measures  should  be 
enacted  into  law.  These  were  the  two  main 
issues  upon  which  I  was  elected  governor,  and 
I  propose  to  go  on  fighting  for  them." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "if  that  is  your  answer,  the 
Sentinel  will  begin  skinning  you  to-morrow." 

I  replied,  "You  may  be  able  to'  prevent  the 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         253 

passage  of  this  legislation,  and  you  may  defeat 
me,  but  I  will  use  all  the  power  that  the  people 
have  given  me  to  fulfill  every  pledge  in  the  plat 
form.  And  you  may  carry  that  to  Mr.  Pfister 
as  my  answer." 

Mr.  Warren  bowed  himself  out  of  the  office, 
and  the  war  on  us  began  from  that  moment. 

The"  Milwaukee  Sentinel  had  been  a  sort  of 
political  bible  in  the  state.  It  went  into  every 
corner  of  Wisconsin.  The  character  which 
Rublee  had  given  to  it  made  it  the  final  authority 
with  thousands  of  readers. 

From  that  moment  it  became  the  organ  of 
the  opposition.  It  supported  every  form  of 
privilege.  The  result  has  been  that  the  party 
which  it  championed  has  lost  control  of  Mil 
waukee,  the  boss  who  owned  it  and  the  bosses  it 
so  ardently  supported  have  been  wholly  retired 
from  power  in  Wisconsin,  and  the  corporations 
back  of  those  bosses  have  been  firmly  reined  in 
by  the  laws  of  the  state. 

But  for  the  time  being  the  change  in  the 
Sentinel  made  our  fight  bitterly  hard.  It 
strengthened  the  opposition.  For  a  long  time 


254         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

I  paid  no  attention  to  its  misrepresentations  and 
personal  attacks.  But  finally,  about  1904,  I 
began  holding  a  copy  of  it  up  to  my  audiences, 
telling  them  just  what  it  stood  for  and  appealing 
to  the  people  of  Wisconsin  to  drive  it  out  of 
their  homes;  saying  that  the  people  ought  only 
to  support  those  papers  that  served  the  public; 
that  the  papers  that  were  organs  of  corporations 
should  depend  upon  the  corporations  for  their 
support.  And  that  is  what  the  people  of  the 
country  ought  to  do  to-day.  They  ought  to 
support  the  newspapers  and  magazines  that 
>  are  serving  their  interests.  There  must  always 
be  muckrakers  as  long  as  there  are  muckmakers, 
and  the  public  owes  it  to  itself  to  support  those 
publications  that  stand  for  the  public  interest. 
It  does  not  make  any  difference  what  good  news 
service  the  organs  of  the  corporations  offer, 
turn  them  out;  teach  them  that  they  can't  prey 
upon  the  public  and  at  the  same  time  appeal  to 
the  public  for  support. 

Following  the  change  of  front  in  the  Sentinel, 
the  lobby  became  more  active.  Clubs  were 
formed  in  Madison  where  members  of  the  legis- 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         255 

lature  could  be  drawn  together  in  a  social  way 
and  cleverly  led  into  intimate  associations  with 
the  corporation  men  who  swarmed  the  capital. 
In  one  of  the  principal  hotels  a  regular  poker 
game  was  maintained  where  members  who  could 
not  be  reached  in  any  other  way,  could  win, 
very  easily,  quite  large  sums  of  money.  In  that 
way  bribes  were  disguised.  It  was,  at  that 
time,  against  the  law  to  use  free  transportation 
in  Wisconsin;  it  was  against  the  law  to  furnish 
it;  it  was  against  the  law  to  procure  it  for  any 
body  else.  And  yet,  all  through  that  session 
of  the  legislature,  members  were  receiving  trans 
portation  in  the  form  of  mileage  books  on  the 
state  roads  for  themselves  and  for  their  friends. 
It  was  notorious  that  lewd  women  were  an 
accessory  to  the  lobby  organization.  Members 
who  could  not  be  reached  in  any  other  way  were 
advised  that  they  could  receive  good  positions 
with  railroad  corporations  after  the  legislative 
session  was  over.  Even  Congressman  Lenroot, 
then  fast  rising  to  the  leadership  of  the  assembly, 
was  offered  one,  which,  of  course,  he  did  not 
take. 


256         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

When  we  continued  to  make  progress  in  spite 
of  all  this  opposition  the  lobby  made  another 
move  against  us.  It  brought  to  bear  all  the 
great  influence  of  the  federal  office-holders  who 
were  especially  disturbed  over  the  possible 
effect  of  a  direct  primary  upon  their  control  of 
the  state.  United  States  District  Attorney 
Wheeler,  an  appointee  of  Spooner,  and  the 
United  States  District  Attorney  of  the  Eastern 
District,  an  appointee  of  Quarles,  were  much  on 
the  ground;  so  were  United  States  Marshal 
Monahan  and  Collector  of  Internal  Revenue 
Fink. 

Finally,  before  the  vote  on  the  direct  primary 
was  taken  in  the  senate,  Senator  Spooner,  who 
rarely  came  to  Wisconsin  while  Congress  was 
in  session,  appeared  in  Madison.  He  was  there 
only  a  few  days,  but  he  was  visited  by  members 
of  the  senate,  and  we  felt  his  influence  strongly 
against  us. 

All  the  efforts  of  the  lobby,  combined  with  the 
opposition  of  the  newspapers  and  the  federal 
office-holders,  was  not  without  its  effect  upon 
our  forces.  Every  moment  from  the  time  the 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         257 

senate  convened  down  to  the  final  vote  on  the 
railroad  taxation  bills  they  were  weakening  us, 
wearing  us  down,  getting  some  men  one  way, 
some  another,  until  finally  before  the  close  of  the 
session  they  had  not  only  the  senate  but  a 
majority  of  the  Republicans  in  the  assembly. 
It  was  a  pathetic  and  tragic  thing  to  see  honest 
men  falling  before  these  insidious  forces.  For 
many  of  them  it  meant  plain  ruin  from  which 
they  never  afterward  recovered. 

In  order  to  make  very  clear  the  methods  em 
ployed  I  shall  here  relate  in  detail  the  stories 
of  several  of  the  cases  which  came  directly  under 
my  own  observation.  I  shall  withhold  the  real 
names  of  the  Senators  and  Assemblymen  con 
cerned,  because  many  of  them  were  the  victims 
of  forces  and  temptations  far  greater  than  they 
could  resist.  If  I  could  also  give  the  names  of 
the  men  really  responsible  for  the  corruption, 
bribery!  jand  debauchery  —  the  men  higher  up, 
the  men  behind  the  lobbyists' — I  would  do  it 
without  hesitation. 

How  did  the  lobby  get  them?  Various  ways. 
There  was  Senator  A.  He  was  a  poor  fellow 


258         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

from  a  northern  district;  a  lawyer  without  much 
practice  —  rather  a  weak  fellow.  I  can't  re 
member  just  on  what  bill  it  was,  but  they  got 
him.  When  he  returned  to  his  district  after  the 
session  he  built  an  expensive  home,  to  the  amaze 
ment  of  all  his  friends,  and  then  came  down  to 
Washington  to  a  federal  position. 

We  depended  on  Senator  B.  He  made  a 
statement  that  he  could  be  relied  upon  to  sup 
port  the  direct  primary  bill.  We  figured  him 
on  our  list  until  about  the  time  that  Spooner 
visited  Madison  and  he  got  away.  Senator 
C.  was  another  man  we  had  counted  upon  as  one 
of  the  old  reliables  in  the  movement.  He  was 
an  Irishman  and  a  good  talker  and  debater. 
They  finally  got  him,  too.  I  remember  he  came 
to  me  one  night  and  said: 

"Well,  I  don't  know  but  what  I'm  going  to 
disappoint  you  in  my  vote  on  the  direct  primary 
bill." 

I  could  not  at  first  think  of  a  word  to  say  —  it 
was  a  staggering  blow. 

"Why,  C.,"  I  said  finally,  "if  you  were  to  go 
.over  to  the  other  side  on  these  measures,  it 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         259 

would  seem  to  me  like  the  end  of  everything. 
You  couldn't  do  a  thing  like  that.  You  have 
been  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  movement." 

I  don't  believe  I  tried  to  reason  with  him.  It 
simply  was  not  a  case  for  argument.  There 
was  only  one  side  to  it,  for  he  himself  had  been 
one  of  our  ablest  speakers  on  the  stump  in  favor 
of  the  direct  primary. 

Well,  he  voted  against  us,  and  it  is  signifi 
cant  that  a  few  months  after  the  legislature 
adjourned  he  was  appointed  to  a  federal  office 
and  is,  I  believe,  still  in  the  service. 

Another  instance  was  that  of  Assemblyman 
D.,  who  had  been  for  some  time  quite  an  active 
supporter  of  the  reform  movement.  He  was  a 
small  business  man  and  came  to  the  legislature 
from  a  county  in  which  I  was  personally  very 
strong.  When  the  committees  were  being  formed, 
he  was  counted  so  much  the  friend  of  our 
measures  that  he  was  placed  upon  one  of  the 
most  important  committees. 

He  stood  with  us  in  the  vote  on  direct  pri 
maries,  but  some  little  time  after  that  Assembly 
man  E.,  who  was  one  of  our  leaders  in  the 


260         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

assembly,  came  into  my  office  one  morning.  E. 
was  a  fine  young  fellow,  and  regarded  as  thor 
oughly  reliable.  He  was  often  in  the  executive 
office  and  I  trusted  him  absolutely.  Upon  the 
occasion  to  which  I  refer  he  said : 

"Governor,  I  have  changed  my  boarding 
place"  —  he  had  been  boarding  with  some 
private  family,  I  think  —  "I  have  moved  over  to 
the  Park  Hotel." 

The  Park  Hotel  was  the  principal  hotel  in 
Madison,  and  the  headquarters  of  all  the  lobby 
ists.  I  was  somewhat  surprised  and  asked  him 
why  he  had  moved. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I  propose  to  be  where  I 
can  watch  the  game  that  these  lobbyists  are 
playing.  I  am  satisfied  that  they  are  working 
on  some  of  our  weak  members,  and  I  am  going 
right  into  their  camp  to  see  what  they  are 
doing." 

Not  long  after  that  he  came  to  me  and  said: 

"How  much  do  you  know  about  D.?  I 
notice  him  about  the  Park  Hotel  a  great  deal 
talking  with  lobbyists.  There's  something  about 
it  that  I  don't  like." 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         261 

Finally  in  one  of  his  talks  about  D.  he  said: 
"You  want  to  look  out  for  D.,  they've  got  him; 
you  will  find  him  going  back  on  railroad  tax 
ation." 

I  was  disturbed  about  it.  We  were  up  pretty 
close,  as  I  remember  it,  to  final  committee 
action  on  the  bill.  I  therefore  telephoned  to 
one  of  the  leading  bankers  in  the  town  in  which 
D.  lived  and  asked  him  to  come  to  Madison. 
This  banker  had  been  a  university  chum  of  mine 
—  a  man  of  the  highest  standing,  and  a  constant 
and  loyal  supporter  of  the  Progressive  move 
ment.  He  came  to  Madison  and  brought  with 
him  a  prominent  merchant  of  the  town,  but 
before  they  could  reach  D.  the  vote  had  been 
taken,  and  the  result  was  so  close  that  it  was 
found  that  D.  had  cast  the  decisive  vote  against 
the  bill.  The  banker  and  his  friends  took  D. 
into  a  room  in  the  capitol,  and  had  a  very 
earnest  talk  with  him.  They  told  him  he  would 
never  be  able  to  make  the  people  believe  that 
he  didn't  have  the  money  of  the  railroads  in  his 
pocket  for  his  betrayal  of  our  cause.  He  never 
got  back  to  the  legislature. 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

A  few  days  later  —  when  this  same  bill  was 
before  the  assembly  —  we  were  to  have  another 
and  a  still  worse  shock.  I  have  said  that  we 
trusted  E.  implicitly.  He  was  one  of  the  most 
enthusiastic  men  we  had,  and  being  a  high- 
spirited,  energetic  young  fellow,  he  was  of  great 
assistance  in  our  fights.  Whenever  we  gathered 
a  little  group  of  the  members  in  the  executive 
office  to  talk  over  any  critical  situation  in  the 
legislature,  E.  was  always  with  us.  He  was  an 
active  young  manufacturer.  He  often  talked 
with  us  about  his  business.  I  think  he  had 
some  special  machine  which  enabled  him  to 
make  his  product  more  cheaply  than  other 
manufacturers. 

One  day  E.  Ray  Stevens  came  into  my  office 
and  said,  "Governor,  I  wish  you  would  send  up 
and  ask  E.  to  come  down  here.  I  don't  just 
like  the  way  he  talks." 

"Why,"  I  said,  "Ray,  there  can't  be  anything 
wrong  with  E." 

Then  I  began  to  think  that  he  had  not  been 
in  to  see  me  for  three  or  four  days.  "Well,"  I 
said,  "I  will  send  up." 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         -263 

IVhen  he  came  through  the  door  he  did  not 
meet  me  with  his  characteristic  frankness.  But 
I  greeted  him  exactly  as  usual  and  said,  "E., 
I  want  to  have  a  little  talk  with  you." 

I  moved  my  chair  right  up  to  his,  placed  my 
hands  on  his  knees  and  looked  him  in  the  eye  a 
moment  before  I  spoke.  Then  I  asked,  "E., 
what's  the  matter?" 

The  tears  started  in  his  eyes  and  the  response 
came  at  once. 

"Governor,  I  can't  help  it.  I've  got  to  vote 
against  the  railroad  taxation  bill."  After  a  mo 
ment  he  added,  "I  haven't  slept  any  for  two 
or  three  nights.  I  have  walked  the  floor.  I  have 
thought  of  resigning  and  going  home." 

"Tell  me  all  about  it,  E.,"  I  said. 

"Well,"  he  replied,  "you  know  that  all  I  have 
in  the  world  I  have  put  into  that  factory  of 
mine.  I  have  told  you  about  how  proud  I  was 
of  the  thing.  Now,"  he  said,  "this  railroad 
lobby  tells  me  that  if  I  vote  for  that  railroad 
taxation  bill  they  will  ruin  me  in  business.  They 
can  take  away  everything  I've  got.  They  have 
threatened  to  give  my  competitors  advantages 


264         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

over  me  in  railroad  rates  that  will  offset  any 
advantages  I  have  with  my  new  machinery. 
Now,  I  can't  beggar  my  family.  I  have  a  wife 
and  babies." 

I  said,  "E.,  you  can't  do  this  wrong.  You 
can't  violate  your  conscience."  I  talked  to  him 
quite  a  bit.  He  got  up  and  walked  the  floor. 
He  said  he  would  always  be  for  our  measures, 
but  he  could  not  risk  being  driven  to  the  wall. 
And  then  he  left  the  office. 

A  few  minutes  before  the  roll  call  on  the  bill, 
E.,  who  sat  next  to  Lenroot,  turned  to  him  and 
said,  "Lenroot,  in  five  minutes  I  am  going  to 
violate  my  oath  of  office."  Lenroot  was  shocked 
and  said,  "What  do  you  mean?"  He  replied: 
"It  is  a  question  between  my  honor  and  my 
bread  and  butter,  and  I  propose  to  vote  for  my 
bread  and  butter."  And  he  voted  against  the 
bill. 

Assemblyman  F.  was  nominated  by  a  con 
vention  that  was  overwhelmingly  for  the  direct 
primary.  It  adopted  a  platform  specifically 
pledging  the  nominee  to  support  the  direct 
primary  bill,  and  F.,  the  candidate,  formally 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         265 

accepted  and  agreed  faithfully  to  carry  out  the 
instructions  of  the  convention. 

During  the  all-night  session  in  the  assembly 
on  the  primary  bill,  F.  was  called  from  the  floor 
into  the  clerk's  room  by  a  member  of  the  senate 
who  offered  him  five  hundred  dollars  to  vote 
against  the  bill.  F.  told  the  lobbyist  that  he 
would  not  dare  to  go  back  to  his  constituents  if 
he  voted  against  that  bill,  as  he  had  solemnly 
promised  them  when  nominated  to  vote  for  it. 
F.  said  he  would  like  to  do  anything  the  Senator 
wanted  him  to  and  he  would  like  the  five  hun 
dred,  but  he  did  not  dare  to  violate  his  pledge. 
After  more  of  this  talk  they  left  the  clerk's  room. 
The  room  was  not  lighted. 

At  the  time  there  was  lying  on  a  lounge  in 
that  room  Assemblyman  G.,  who  was  ill  and 
had  been  brought  from  a  sick  room  to  attend 
upon  this  important  session.  He  recognized 
F.'s  voice  and  also  the  name  of  the  Senator, 
which  F.  repeatedly  used  during  the  negotia 
tions.  Assemblyman  G.  reported  the  whole 
matter  to  Lenroot,  who  informed  me.  We 
agreed  that  here  was  a  case  that  we  could  take 


266         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

into  the  court  if  G.  would  swear  to  the  facts  as 
reported  to  Lenroot.  It  was  hoped  that  a  suc 
cessful  prosecution  might  check  the  bribers  in 
their  raid  on  our  legislation. 

I  sent  for  G.  In  Lenroot's  presence  he  re 
peated  the  conversation  between  F.  and  the 
senator,  just  as  he  had  given  it  to  Lenroot.  I 
then  called  F.  to  the  executive  chamber.  He 
admitted  the  conversation  as  detailed  by  G., 
but  was  slow  about  confirming  G.  as  to  the  name 
of  the  Senator  which  he  had  used  again  and 
again  in  discussing  the  five-hundred-dollar  pro 
posal  while  in  the  clerk's  room. 

Another  interview  was  arranged,  at  which 
time  he  promised  to  tell  everything.  Before 
that  interview  the  lobby  did  such  effective  work 
with  both  F.  and  G.  that  their  memories  utterly 
failed  them  as  to  every  important  detail  of  the 
whole  event,  and  without  these  two  witnesses 
there  was  no  case. 

Such  was  the  opposition  we  had  to  meet  on 
all  of  our  measures,  the  lobby  standing  together 
as  one  man  against  both  the  taxation  and  the 
direct  primary  bills. 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         267 

It  was  about  the  middle  of  March,  after  in 
conceivable  delays,  before  the  Direct  Primary 
bill  could  be  finally  gotten  up  in  the  assembly 
for  consideration,  and  it  was  then  bitterly  op 
posed. 

When  the  debate  was  finally  exhausted  there 
was  an  all-night  session  so  managed  in  a  par 
liamentary  way  as  to  prevent  a  vote  being  taken. 
In  the  meantime  lobbyists  were  calling  members 
of  the  assembly  outside  of  the  chamber,  liquor 
was  brought  into  the  capitol,  and  into  the  com 
mittee  rooms.  Members  were  made  drunk  and 
brought  back  in  such  a  condition  of  intoxication 
that  they  had  to  be  supported  to  their  seats. 
And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  this,  we  retained  the  sup 
port  of  enough  members  to  pass  the  bill. 

When  it  reached  the  senate,  though  the  mem 
bers  were  hostile  to  it,  they  dared  not  kill  it 
outright.  The  sentiment  in  the  state,  they  knew, 
was  too  strong.  Accordingly,  they  pursued  the 
usual  indirect  means  of  accomplishing  the  same 
end  —  by  passing  a  substitute  measure  called 
the  Hagemeister  bill,  which  defeated  the  real 
purpose  of  the  reform. 


v/ 

268         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

This  substitute  was  indeed  supported  by  some 
of  our  friends  who  were  affected  by  the  argument 
that  it  was  a  good  thing  to  make  a  start,  that 
"half  a  loaf  is  better  than  no  bread";  that  it  was 
necessary  at  any  hazard  to  "get  something  on 
the  statute  books." 

But  in  legislation  no  bread  is  often  better 
,than  half  a  loaf.  I  believe  it  is  usually  better  to 
be  beaten  and  come  right  back  at  the  next  session 
and  make  a  fight  for  a  thoroughgoing  law  than 
to  have  written  on  the  books  a  weak  and  in 
definite  statute.  The  gentlemen  who  opposed 
us  were  ingenious.  Under  the  Hagemeister  sub 
stitute  they  proposed  to  try  out  the  direct 
primary  principle  with  respect  to  county  offices 
alone.  Now,  they  knew  well  enough  that 
county  elections  scarcely  touch  the  real  problem 
of  party  caucuses,  conventions  and  legislation; 
that  they  involve  little  besides  personal  strife 
for  small  local  offices.  They  expected  by  the 
application  of  such  a  law  to  discredit  the  direct 
primary  by  bringing  out  a  miserably  small  vote 
with  a  big  expense  charged  up  against  it.  They 
knew  that  it  would  take  several  years  to  try  out 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         269 

the  experiment  and  that  by  that  time  the  Pro 
gressive  group,  unable  to  prove  the  excellence  of 
their  policies,  would  have  merited  the  distrust 
of  the  people. 

I  had  thought  all  this  out  years  before.  All 
through  our  earlier  contests  we  could  have 
obtained  some  mild  or  harmless  compromises 
and  concessions.  But  I  was  clear  that  we  should 
not  stand  for  anything  that  did  not  strike  at  the 
root  of  the  whole  boss  system.  So  I  promptly 
vetoed  the  Hagemeister  bill  and  took  the  severe 
lashing  of  the  same  newspapers  which  had  all 
along  been  fighting  the  direct  primary. 

My  attitude  in  this  case,  and  in  several  other 
similar  matters,  has  given  me  the  reputation  of 
being  radical  and  extreme.  And  if  this  is  radi 
calism  then  indeed  I  am  a  radical;  but  I  call  it 
common  sense.  It  is  simply  the  clear  compre 
hension  of  the  principle  involved,  and  the  clear 
conception  of  the  utter  destruction  of  that  prin 
ciple  if  only  a  part  of  it  is  applied.  I  have 
always  believed  that  anything  that  was  worth 
fighting  for  involved  a  principle,  and  I  insist  on 
going  far  enough  to  establish  that  principle  and  to 


V 

270         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

give  it  a  fair  trial.  I  believe  in  going  forward  a 
step  at  a  time,  but  it  must  be  a  full  step.  When  I 
went  into  the  primary  fight,  and  afterward  into 
the  railroad  fight  —  and  it  has  been  my  settled 
policy  ever  since  —  I  marked  off  a  certain  area 
in  which  I  would  not  compromise,  within  which 
compromise  would  have  done  more  harm  to 
progress  than  waiting  and  figliting  would  have 
done. 

The  Socialists,  for  example,  assert  that  the 
regulation  of  railroads,  for  which  I  have  always 
stood  firmly,  will  not  work  —  that  it  is  a  com 
promise,  and  that  we  cannot  escape  govern 
mental  ownership.  But  I  say  that  regulation 
is  in  itself  a  complete  step,  involving  a  definite 
and  clear  policy  or  principle.  I  think  it  will 
work,  and  I  know  it  ought  to  be  thoroughly  tested. 
If  it  proves  the  correct  solution  of  the  problem, 
we  have  no  farther  to  go;  if  it  does  not,  we  can 
take  the  next  full  step  with  confidence  that  we 
have  behind  us  that  great  body  of  the  people 
who  can  only  be  convinced  by  events.  Diffi 
culties  leading  to  social  explosions  are  caused 
not  by  too  lengthy  or  hasty  strides  of  progress 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         271 

but  by  holding  back  and  preventing  the  people 
from  taking  the  next  full  step  forward  when  they 
are  ready  for  it. 

So  I  vetoed  the  Hagemeister  bill,  and  decided 
to  go  again  before  the  people  with  the  whole 
issue.  I  knew  the  people  of  Wisconsin  thor 
oughly.  I  knew  from  close  contact  with  them 
what  they  were  thinking,  what  they  believed. 
I  knew  also  that  I  was  advocating  a  sound  prin 
ciple  which  no  amount  of  abuse  or  misrepresen 
tation  could  finally  defeat.  I  felt  sure  they  would 
support  me  —  as  indeed  they  did  when  the  time 
came,  and  most  loyally. 

After  the  direct  primary  matter  was  disposed 
of,  the  railroad  taxation  bills  took  foremost 
place  in  the  legislature.  By  this  time  the  lobby 
ists  had  reached  a  good  many  of  our  men  and 
we  began  to  fear  that  we  could  not  even  control 
the  assembly.  They  held  back  the  taxation 
bills  and  were  evidently  trying  to  smother  them. 
I  waited  patiently  and  hopefully  for  the  legis 
lature  to  act.  Weeks  went  by.  Hearings  were 
strung  out.  It  was  perfectly  plain  that  it  was 
their  plan  to  beat  the  bills  by  delay.  Every 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

hour,  in  the  meantime,  the  corroding  influence 
of  the  lobby  was  at  work.  Business  connections, 
social  diversions,  the  poker  room,  entertain 
ments,  of  every  kind,  decent  and  otherwise, 
were  employed,  and  all  I  could  do,  as  I  sat  there 
day  by  day  watching  the  precious  time  go  by, 
was  to  communicate  with  the  legislature  in  one 
of  two  ways  —  by  message,  or  by  personal  appeal 
to  the  members  to  redeem  the  promises  that  we 
had  made  to  the  people  as  a  basis  for  our  election. 
The  one  way  was  provided  for  in  the  consti 
tution,  the  other  was  not.  But  I  could  not  be 
stopped  from  making  appeals  to  those  members; 
I  could  not.  It  was  very  well  known  that  I  was 
the  only  man  in  the  capitol  who  could  crowd 
that  legislature  to  do  its  duty.  That  is  why 
they  attacked  me  chiefly.  As  the  editor  of  the 
Sentinel  said  to  me:  "If  only  you  will  take 
your  hands  off,  we  can  take  care  of  the  legis 
lature."  They  argued  thus  to  me:  ;i  You  have 
sent  in  a  strong  message,  you  have  made  good  so 
far  as  you  are  concerned,  and  the  people  will 
understand.  Now  quit,  quit,  and  you  can  have 
anything  you  want." 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR        273 

But  I  could  not  see  the  corruption  going  on 
all  around  me,  I  could  not  see  honest  measures 
promised  to  the  people  beaten  by  wholesale 
bribery  without  doing  the  utmost  I  could  to 
prevent  it.  About  that  time  the  legislature 
passed  and  sent  up  to  me  a  bill  taxing  the  dogs 
owned  in  the  state.  The  humorous  absurdity  of 
such  a  measure  at  once  struck  me  —  the  attempt 
to  raise  a  few  hundred  dollars  in  taxes  upon  dogs 
owned  by  a  class  of  people  already  overbur 
dened  with  taxes,  while  the  corporations  of  the 
state  were  paying  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
dollars  less  than  their  just  share!  I  therefore 
made  it  the  occasion  of  a  message  to  the  legis 
lature  in  which  I  vetoed  the  dog  tax  bill  and  in 
the  course  of  which  I  endeavored  to  outline  the 
true  principles  of  taxation.  I  also  held  up  to 
view,  as  I  had  done  in  my  veto  of  the  Hage- 
meister  bill,  the  exact  conditions  in  the  senate, 
showing  how  the  lobby  had  corrupted  the  rep 
resentatives  of  the  people.  Both  of  these  mes 
sages  struck  home  and  stung,  as  I  intended  they 
should,  and  both  attracted  so  much  attention 
throughout  the  state  that  the  legislature  was 


274         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

forced  to  a  consideration  of  the  bills.  After  a 
brief  fight,  however,  both  of  the  railroad  taxa 
tion  bills  were  defeated. 

Thus  the  session  of  1901  closed  without  our 
having  accomplished  any  of  the  important 
things  that  we  had  set  out  to  do.  More  than 
this,  it  had  enabled  the  lobby  and  the  bosses, 
now  more  strongly  organized  than  ever,  to  win 
over  some  of  our  leaders.  They  even  secured 
a  manifesto  signed  by  more  than  half  of  the 
Republican  members  of  both  branches  of  the 
legislature  criticising  me  sharply  for  what  they 
claimed  to  be  my  encroachment  upon  the  con 
stitutional  rights  of  the  legislative  branch  of  the 
state  government,  and  organized  themselves 
into  a  league  to  fight  the  Progressive  movement. 

I  freely  admit  that  as  governor  I  used  all  the 
power  and  prestige  of  the  office  to  secure  the 
legislation  that  had  been  promised  to  the  people. 
I  arraigned  the  legislature  as  derelict  of  duty. 
No  normal  condition  would  wrarrant  any  exec 
utive,  state  or  federal,  in  calling  the  legislative 
department  so  sharply  to  account  as  I  did  in  the 
veto  of  the  Hagemeister  bill  and  in  the  veto  of 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         275 

the  dog  tax  bill,  but  in  this  case  the  situation 
was  not  normal;  after  a  series  of  campaigns  the 
Republican  party,  the  party  in  control  of  the 
government  of  Wisconsin,  had  pledged  in  the 
platform  of  1898  a  reform  of  the  nominating 
system,  and  of  the  unequal  and  unjust  tax  laws, 
and  the  legislature  elected  on  that  platform  had 
defeated  the  will  of  the  people  and  denied  them 
the  legislation  for  which  a  majority  of  them  had 
declared. 

Again  in  1900  the  same  pledges  had  been 
made.  The  people  in  the  election  had  by  more 
than  one  hundred  thousand  majority  voted 
that  such  legislation  be  enacted,  and  again  the 
legislature  had  defied  the  will  of  the  electorate. 
It  was  plainly  the  end  of  representative  govern 
ment  in  Wisconsin.  It  was  the  rule  of  a  minor 
ity  through  trickery,  bribery  and  corruption. 
It  was  a  state  of  revolt.  The  situation  called 
for  extraordinary,  aggressive  and  strong  action 
on  the  part  not  only  of  the  executive  but  of 
every  man  who  cared  to  see  democracy  main 
tained.  The  abuse  of  power  was  not  on  the 
part  of  the  executive.  It  was  on  the  part  of  the 


: 


276         FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR 

legislature.  The  legislators  were  the  ones  who 
were  abusing  their  power.  The  executive  was 
obeying  the  mandate  of  the  people. 

I  understood  perfectly  well  not  only  that  the 
position  which  I  was  taking  would  raise  an  issue 
with  the  legislature,  but  that  it  would  be  made 
the  basis  of  a  bitter  attack  upon  me.  But  I 
was  content  to  go  to  the  people  with  my  mes 
sages,  and  place  my  record  side  by  side  with  the 
record  of  the  legislature,  and  let  it  be  fully 
discussed  and  talked  out  with  plenty  of  time 
for  the  people  to  consider  whether  I  had  taken 
a  course  menacing  to  a  republican  form  of 
government,  or  whether  this  legislature  was 
undermining  and  destroying  every  semblance 
of  representative  government.  So,  when  this 
manifesto  was  promulgated,  I  accepted  the 
issue.  I  caused  many  thousands  of  copies  of 
the  messages  which  were  criticised  to  be  printed 
and  sent  broadcast  over  the  state. 

If  this  had  been  all,  therefore,  I  might  have 
looked  upon  the  situation  more  hopefully.  But 
the  strain  under  which  I  had  worked  for  six 
months,  the  high  pressure,  the  long  hours,  the 


FIRST  TERM  AS  GOVERNOR         277 

anxiety  —  I  suppose  I  worked  more  than 
eighteen  hours  a  day  steadily  —  had  so  impaired 
my  health  that  as  soon  as  the  legislature  ad 
journed,  I  broke  down  completely,  and  for 
practically  a  year  afterward  I  was  ill,  part  of 
the  time  dangerously.  This  also  was  made  the 
occasion  for  unremitting  attack.  They  published 
stories  that  I  was  losing  my  mind,  that  I  had 
softening  of  the  brain  —  anything  to  discredit 
me  with  the  people  of  the  state.  But  there  was 
never  a  moment  that  I  was  not  determined  that 
if  I  lived  I  would  fight  it  out  with  them  again. 


CHAPTER  VII 

HOW  WE  PASSED  THE  RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

A  THE  opening  of  the  legislature  of  1903, 
I  felt  that  the  time  had  arrived  to 
advance  vigorously  with  the  railroad 
regulation  issue.  There  were  good  reasons  for 
doing  this.  We  had  the  support  of  the  public. 
We  had  discussed  the  subject  pretty  thoroughly 
in  the  preceding  campaign,  so  that  the  people 
were  prepared  to  back  us  up  strongly  in  our 
plans.  It  had  been  a  difficult  campaign,  but 
it  was  indeed  illuminating.  And  that  was  for 
tunate,  for  it  was  tremendously  important  at 
that  particular  time  to  have  the  issue  clearly 
understood  and  the  voters  united  upon  it.  As 
I  have  already  related,  the  Progressives  had 
suffered  defeat  in  the  legislature  of  1901.  All 
the  important  measures  they  had  urged  at  that 
session  failed  of  passage.  Besides  that,  I  was 

278 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         279 

seriously  broken  in  health  for  many  months. 
Even  a  year  later,  when  it  became  necessary  for 
me  to  make  a  campaign  for  renomination  as 
governor,  I  was  so  ill  that  I  could  not  make  a 
single  speech.  The  old  machine  seized  upon  this 
situation  to  conduct  a  campaign  of  unexampled 
vigor.  Organized  in  what  was  called  the  Elev 
enth  Story  League,  because  they  occupied  the 
entire  eleventh  story  of  a  Milwaukee  office  build 
ing,  they  spent  money  without  stint.  They 
canvassed  the  entire  state,  they  purchased  the 
editorial  opinions  of  upward  of  two  hundred 
Republican  newspapers,  they  issued  many  pam 
phlets  attacking  our  movement,  their  speakers 
were  untiring.  But  in  spite  of  the  furious  cam 
paign  made  against  me,  I  was  renominated. 
This  result  was  brought  about  chiefly,  I  think, 
by  the  publication  of  a  "Voter's  Handbook" 
of  one  hundred  and  forty-four  pages  in  which 
we  set  forth  the  truth  about  our  work,  about 
our  plans  for  railroad  taxation  and  direct  pri 
maries,  and  told  specifically  by  what  corrupt 
methods  the  Progressives  had  been  defeated  in 
the  legislature  of  1901.  We  printed  125,000 


280         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

copies  of  this  book  and  placed  it  in  the  hands 
of  influential  men  in  every  part  of  the  state. 

I  had  not  yet  regained  my  strength  when  I 
began  my  speaking  campaign  in  Milwaukee, 
September  30,  1902,  but  I  improved  steadily 
and  spoke  every  day  to  the  end  of  the  campaign. 

Mayor  Rose  of  Milwaukee,  the  Democrat 
who  ran  against  me,  had  the  support  of  the 
Republican  machine;  nevertheless  I  was  easily 
reflected  by  some  50,000  plurality. 
/  In  the  course  of  our  campaign  we  had  not  only 
advocated  our  railroad  taxation  bills  but  we 
had  also  endeavored  to  show  the  people  con 
clusively  how  futile  it  was  to  stop  short  with 
laws  increasing  railroad  taxes  when  the  railroads 
could  easily  turn  around  and  take  back  every 
cent  of  that  increase  by  raising  their  rates.  But 
the  chief  reason  for  advancing  strongly  with  this 
issue  was  a  tactical  one.  I  hoped  to  make  such 
a  hot  fight  for  regulation  that  before  the  session 
was  over  the  railroad  lobby  would  be  most  happy 
to  let  our  taxation  bills  go  through,  if  thereby 
they  could  prevent  the  enactment  of  a  law  cre 
ating  a  commission  to  regulate  them. 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

When  the  legislature  of  1903  met  we  were 
overjoyed  to  find  that  the  Progressives  were 
strong  enough  to  organize  both  houses,  though 
our  majority  in  the  senate  was  very  slight. 
Irvine  L.  Lenroot,  now  a  member  of  Congress 
from  Wisconsin,  was  elected  Speaker  of  the 
Assembly.  Although  Lenroot,  who  is  of  Swed 
ish  parentage,  born  in  Wisconsin,  was  only 
thirty  years  old,  and  had  served  but  one  term 
previously  in  the  legislature,  he  made  an 
enviable  record.  A  ready  debater,  with  a 
special  gift  as  a  lawmaker,  he  forged  rapidly 
ahead  to  leadership  in  the  legislature,  and  im 
pressed  his  strong  personality  upon  the  most 
important  statutes  of  Wisconsin  enacted  from 
1901  to  1905.  He  is  now  winning  added  dis 
tinction  as  a  constructive  legislator  in  the  House 
of  Representatives. 

For  years  the  railroads  had  been  under  serious 
attack  in  political  campaigns.  A.  R.  Hall  had 
long  been  diligently  hammering  away  on  the 
subject,  and  had  produced  a  general  impression 
that  conditions  were  wrong,  without  any  con 
crete  proof  of  his  contentions.  Hence  it  had 


282        RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

been  possible  for  the  railroads  by  the  production 
of  a  few  made-to-order  statistics  to  confuse  and 
unsettle  the  public  mind. 

I  aimed,  therefore,  in  my  message,  not  to 
make  a  general  attack  upon  the  railroads,  but 
rather  to  set  forth  the  exact  conditions  regard 
ing  railroad  rates  and  services.  I  presented 
fifteen  different  statistical  tables,  carefully  pre 
pared,  demonstrating  the  excessive  transporta 
tion  charges  imposed  by  the  railroads  upon  the 
people  of  the  state.  I  compared  our  railroad- 
made  rates  with  the  state-made  rates  of  the 
neighboring  commonwealths  of  Illinois  and 
Iowa,  applying  the  comparisons  to  151  well- 
known  railroad  towns  in  Wisconsin,  Illinois 
and  Iowa,  the  names  of  which  I  gave,  together 
with  the  specific  rates.  I  showed  that  these 
151  towns  were  paying  on  an  average  39.9  per 
cent,  more  for  their  transportation  charges  than 
towns  located  at  similar  distances  from  markets 
in  Illinois  and  Iowa.  In  this  way  I  got  down  to 
the  vitals  of  the  subject  and  laid  it  all  before 
the  people  so  clearly  that  no  one  could  get  away 
from  it.  It  went  straight  home  to  every  farmer 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         283 

and  shipper  in  the  state.  Here  was  a  farmer 
making  shipments,  for  example,  from  Baraboo  to 
Milwaukee.  I  showed  that  he  was  paying  59.77 
per  cent,  more  freight  upon  certain  products 
than  the  farmer  of  Iowa  paid  for  shipping  the 
same  products  exactly  the  same  distance  to 
market. 

Abusing  an  individual,  calling  him  a  hare 
brained  theorist,  a  visionary,  a  demagogue,  an 
unsafe  radical,  wrould  not  answer  these  tables 
and  the  deductions  which  I  made  from  them. 
It  was  for  this  reason  that  the  message  made 
such  a  strong  impression  throughout  the  state. 
However  bitterly  a  newspaper  might  oppose 
me,  yet  my  proof  of  the  discrimination  in  freight 
rates  against  the  very  locality  in  which  it  was 
published  simply  could  not  be  answered  or 
disregarded. 

Immediately  the  railroads  sent  their  leading 
lawyers  to  Madison  to  meet  my  charges.  One 
of  them  published  a  brief  in  which  he  took  up 
table  by  table  the  figures  I  had  presented  and 
tried  to  make  some  explanation  or  defence.  But 
he  could  not  budge  them;  they  were  unanswer- 


284         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

able.  Nor  could  my  message  be  assailed  as 
intemperate;  it  was  as  dispassionate  as  a  census 
report. 

One  of  their  statements  gave  me  a  further 
opening.  It  was  charged  that  in  making  my 
comparisons  I  had  unfairly  selected  stations 
where  exceptional  conditions  existed,  and  that 
I  had  done  this  to  prove  my  case,  the  implication 
being  that  elsewhere  in  the  state  the  rates  were 
not  discriminatory. 

I  decided,  therefore,  to  get  out  a  special  mes 
sage  that  should  once  and  for  all  set  the  whole 
matter  at  rest.  With  the  help  of  Halford  Erick- 
son,  chief  of  our  bureau  of  statistics,  whom  I 
later  appointed  a  member  of  the  railroad  com 
mission,  and  a  corps  of  clerks,  we  listed  every 
station  on  the  Northwestern  and  the  St.  Paul 
railroads,  the  two  principal  roads  of  the  state, 
and  secured  the  rates  for  shipping  every  sort 
of  merchandise  and  commodity  between  those 
stations  and  the  markets.  Then  we  got  corre 
sponding  rates  and  distances  in  Iowa  and  Illi 
nois  and  printed  them,  with  the  names  of  the 
stations,  side  bv  side  with  those  of  Wisconsin. 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         285 

Having  in  hand  this  voluminous  material,  I 
worked  night  after  night  at  the  executive  resi 
dence  until  I  wrote  a  message  of  178  printed 
pages,  to  which  was  added  many  supporting 
supplementary  tables.  I  sent  in  this  message 
to  the  legislature  on  April  28,  1903,  and  it 
furnished  a  final  and  unanswerable  demonstra 
tion  that  we  were  paying  from  20  per  cent,  to 
69  per  cent,  higher  freight  rates  in  Wisconsin 
than  they  were  paying  for  exactly  the  same 
service  in  Iowa  or  Illinois.  I  presented  it  on 
the  day  before  the  hearings  on  the  bill  were 
to  open,  for  I  was  certain  that  on  that  day  there 
would  be  assembled  in  Madison,  at  the  behest 
of  the  railroads,  all  the  big  shippers  of  Wis 
consin.  And  they  actually  came  by  the  car 
load,  filled  all  the  hotels,  thronged  the  capitol 
and  surrounded  the  members  of  the  legislature. 
They  argued,  protested,  threatened,  but  they 
could  not  controvert  my  facts. 

On  the  receipt  of  the  message  the  railroad 
lobby  engineered  a  plan  to  break  the  effect  of  it 
by  organizing  an  indignation  movement  among 
these  big  shippers.  The  meeting,  which  was 


286         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

held  in  the  state  senate,  was  a  cut-and-dried 
affair  at  which  resolutions  were  adopted  de 
nouncing  my  message,  particularly  and  espe 
cially  denying  the  statements  in  it  that  some 
of  the  shippers  who  appeared  to  oppose  the 
legislation  were  in  receipt  of  special  favors  or 
rebates  from  the  railroads.  The  greatest  ex 
citement  prevailed  in  and  about  the  capitol 
and  all  over  the  state.  In  fact,  I  was  content 
to  bide  my  time  regarding  the  action  of  the 
shippers.  I  could  not  at  that  moment  produce 
the  legal  evidence  that  they  were  receiving 
rebates,  but  I  was  absolutely  sure  it  existed,  and 
I  shall  tell  later  how  we  secured  it. 

I  knew  also  that  the  statement  in  my  message 
that  some  of  these  shippers  had  been  coerced  by 
the  railroad  companies  into  appearing  before 
the  legislature  was  perfectly  true.  I  had 
received  calls  from  some  of  the  smaller  manufac 
turers  and  merchants  who  told  me  confidentially 
that  they  were  there  ostensibly  to  fight  the  legis 
lation,  but  wanted  me  to  know,  privately,  that 
they  were  in  favor  of  it,  that  they  were  afraid 
if  they  did  not  come  when  they  were  summoned 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         287 

by  the  railroads  they  would  be  punished  by 
increases  in  their  rates,  delays  in  furnishing  cars, 
and  in  many  other  ways. 

The  regulation  bill  did  not  pass  at  that  session, 
nor  did  we  expect  it  to  pass.  But  the  contest  ac 
complished  the  purposes  we  had  chiefly  in  mind. 
It  stirred  the  people  of  the  state  as  they  had 
never  been  stirred  before,  and  laid  the  founda 
tions  for  an  irresistible  campaign  in  1904.  It 
also  gave  the  lobby  so  much  to  do  —  as  we  had 
anticipated  —  that  it  could  not  spend  any  time 
in  resisting  our  measures  for  railroad  taxation. 
It  also  forced  some  members  of  the  legislature 
who  were  really  opposed  to  us,  and  who  intended 
to  vote  against  the  regulation  bill,  to  vote  with 
us  on  the  taxation  bill  as  a  bid  for  the  favor 
of  the  people  of  their  districts. 

So,  at  last,  after  all  these  years  of  struggle, 
we  wrote  our  railroad  tax  legislation  into  the 
statutes  of  Wisconsin.  As  an  immediate  result, 
railroad  taxes  were  increased  more  than  $600,000 
annually.  When  I  came  into  the  governor's 
office,  on  January  1,  1901,  the  state  was  in 
debt  $330,000  and  had  only  $4,125  in  the  general 


288         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

fund.  But  so  great  were  the  receipts  from  our 
new  corporation  taxes,  and  from  certain  other 
sources,  that  in  four  years'  time,  on  January  1, 
1905,  we  had  paid  off  all  our  indebtedness  and 
had  in  the  general  fund  of  the  treasury  $407,506. 
We  had  so  much  on  hand,  indeed,  that  we  found 
it  unnecessary  to  raise  any  taxes  for  the  suc 
ceeding  two  years. 

Indeed,  we  so  reorganized  and  equalized  our 
whole  system  of  taxation  that  the  state  to-day 
is  on  a  sounder,  more  businesslike  foundation 
than  ever  before.  We  brought  in  so  much 
property  hitherto  not  taxed  or  unequally  taxed 
that,  while  the  expenses  of  the  state  have  greatly 
increased,  still  the  burden  of  taxation  on  the 
people  has  actually  decreased.  While  corpora 
tions  in  1900  paid  taxes  of  $2,059,139  a  year, 
in  1910  they  paid  $4,221,504  a  year,  or  more 
than  double.  Wisconsin  to-day  leads  all  the 
states  of  the  union  in  the  proportion  of  its  taxes 
collected  from  corporations.  It  derives  70  per 
cent,  of  its  total  state  taxes  from  that  source, 
while  the  next  nearest  state,  Ohio,  derives  52 
per  cent, 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         289 

In  1903  we  passed  an  inheritance  tax  law 
which  yielded  us  $26,403  in  the  following  year 
and  has  increased  steadily  since. 

In  1905  I  recommended  a  graduated  income 
tax  which  has  since  been  adopted  by  the  state. 
It  is  the  most  comprehensive  income  tax  system 
yet  adopted  in  this  country.  Those  who  receive 
incomes  of  over  $500  must  make  a  return  to  the 
tax  assessor.  The  tax  at  1  per  cent,  begins  on 
incomes  above  $800  in  the  case  of  unmarried 
people  and  above  $1,200  in  the  case  of  married 
persons,  increasing  one  half  of  1  per  cent,  or 
thereabout  for  each  additional  $1,000,  until 
$12,000  is  reached,  when  the  tax  becomes  5| 
per  cent.  On  incomes  above  $12,000  a  year  the 
tax  is  6  per  cent. 

All  of  these  new  sources  of  income  have 
enabled  us  to  increase  greatly  the  service  of  the 
state  to  the  people  without  noticeably  increasing 
the  burden  upon  the  people.  Especially  have 
we  built  up  our  educational  system.  In  1900  the 
state  was  expending  $550,000  a  year  on  its  uni 
versity;  in  1910  it  appropriated  over  $1,700,000, 
and  there  has  been  a  similar  increase  for 


290         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

our  normal  and  graded  schools  and  charitable 
institutions.  Under  the  constitution  the  state 
debt  is  limited  to  $100,000,  so  that  we  must 
practically  pay  as  we  go.  Recently  we  have 
been  building  a  state  capitol  to  cost  $6,000,000, 
at  the  rate  of  $700,000  to  $1,000,000  a  year 
from  current  funds. 

After  the  railroad  taxation  bills  were  out  of 
the  way  in  the  legislature  of  1903  a  law  was 
passed,  upon  my  recommendation,  providing 
for  the  appointment  of  a  corps  of  expert  ac 
countants  to  investigate  the  books  of  the  rail 
road  companies  doing  business  in  Wisconsin 
with  a  view  to  ascertaining  whether  they  were 
honestly  and  fully  reporting  their  gross  earnings 
upon  Wisconsin  business.  The  railroads  had 
always  been  left  practically  free  to  assess  them 
selves;  that  is,  they  transmitted  annually  to  the 
state  treasurer  the  reports  of  gross  earnings 
on  which  they  paid  a  license  fee  of  4  per  cent, 
in  lieu  of  all  taxes,  and  no  one  connected  with  the 
state  knew  whether  these  reports  were  accurate 
or  not.  I  was  confident,  also,  and  so  stated,  that 
such  an  examination  of  the  companies'  books 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         291 

would  finally  settle  the  facts  as  to  whether  the 
railroads  of  Wisconsin  were  or  were  not  paying 
rebates  to  the  big  shippers.  And,  as  I  have 
said,  I  wanted  the  legal  evidence.  As  no  one 
could  make  an  argument  against  such  an  in 
vestigation,  we  got  the  law. 

Expert  accountants  were  immediately  em 
ployed  and  presented  themselves  at  the  main 
offices  of  the  railroads  in  Chicago.  The  railroad 
officials  did  not  exactly  refuse  them  admittance, 
but  asked  them  to  come  again.  In  this  way 
they  succeeded  in  securing  some  weeks  of  delay; 
for  what  purpose  or  for  what  preparation  we 
were  never  able  to  learn.  But  in  course  of  time 
the  Wisconsin  accountants  were  admitted  to 
their  offices,  and  made  a  thorough  investigation, 
resulting  in  the  discovery  that  rebates  had  been 
given  to  the  amount  of  something  like  $1,100,000 
during  the  preceding  period  of  six  years.  In 
short,  we  found  that  in  reporting  gross  earnings 
the  railroads  had  left  out  all  account  of  these 
secret  rebates  and  we  therefore  demanded  the 
payment  of  taxes  upon  them.  The  railroads 
carried  the  cases  to  the  supreme  court,  but  the 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

state  was  finally  victorious  and  we  recovered 
over  $400,000  in  back  taxes  from  the  railroads 
in  this  one  case. 

The  investigation  also  showed  clearly  that 
many  of  the  big  manufacturers  and  shippers  of 
Wisconsin  had  long  been  receiving  very  large 
sums  in  rebates  in  violation  of  the  Interstate 
Commerce  act.  I  recall  that  one  firm  received 
as  much  as  $40,000  in  rebates  in  one  year,  and 
this  firm  had  been  particularly  active  among  the 
lobbyists.  Another  firm  received  $60,000  a 
year;  others,  various  sums,  large  and  small. 
The  violence,  indeed,  of  the  opposition  on  the 
part  of  the  shippers  and  the  fury  of  their  denun 
ciation  of  the  governor  for  intimating  that  re 
bating  was  practised  in  Wisconsin  could  be 
pretty  well  gauged  by  the  amounts  they  were 
proven  to  have  received. 

We  had  now  passed  one  of  the  two  great 
measures  so  long  struggled  for  —  the  railroad 
taxation  bill.  The  other,  that  providing  for 
direct  primaries,  seemed  almost  within  reach. 

I  prepared  that  part  of  my  message  which 
dealt  with  direct  nominations  of  candidates  for 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         293 

office  as  though  on  trial  for  my  life.  I  felt  that 
the  legislature  simply  must  be  made  to  see  its 
duty  and  that  we  must  pass  the  direct  primary 
at  that  session. .  I  feared  that  if  it  failed  again, 
after  six  years  of  agitation,  we  might  begin  to 
lose  ground  with  the  public.  There  comes  a 
time  when  public  interest  cannot  be  sustained 
in  further  discussion  of  a  subject  no  matter  how  1 
important.  The  people  will  give  an  adminis 
tration  their  support  two  or  three  times  and 
then  they  begin  to  expect  results. 

The  primary  bill  as  introduced  easily  passed 
the  assembly,  and  after  a  long  and  hard  fight 
we  finally  got  it  through  the  senate  by  accept 
ing  a  provision  submitting  the  act  on  a  referen 
dum  to  the  voters  of  the  state  in  the  election  of 
1904.  The  machine  senators  let  it  go  through 
with  this  provision  because,  first,  it  left  the 
caucus  and  convention  system  in  force  for  nearly 
two  years  longer.  They  felt  that  they  would 
thus  have  another  chance  to  secure  our  defeat 
and  get  control  of  the  state.  It  also  gave  them 
a  chance  to  defeat  the  measure,  if  they  could,  at 
the  polls.  They  believed,  I  am  confident,  that 


294         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

the  people  themselves  would  fail  to  adopt  it; 
they  still  thought  that  it  had  back  of  it  only 
"agitators"  and  "demagogues."  It  was  neces 
sarily  a  lengthy  measure,  with  some  forty  or 
more  sections,  and  they  figured  that  to  present 
the  details  of  a  complex  bill  was  a  task  too  great 
for  us  in  a  campaign  involving  other  important 
issues.  Under  the  referendum  as  now  adopted 
in  many  states  publication  of  such  measures  is 
provided  for  at  public  expense,  months  in  ad 
vance  of  the  election,  and  there  is  wide  dis 
tribution  of  literature  on  the  subject.  But  there 
was  no  such  provision  in  Wisconsin  at  that  time 
and  they  relied  on  the  difficulties  and  expense 
we  would  have  in  reaching  all  the  voters,  and  on 
their  own  ability  to  checkmate  us. 

But,  as  usual,  the  bosses  were  mistaken  in 
their  estimate  of  the  intelligence  of  the  people. 
When  the  time  came  the  Democratic  party  as 
\vell  as  the  Republican  party  declared  for  it, 
and  although  a  desperate  fight  was  made  upon 
the  measure  at  the  polls,  nevertheless  it  carried 
in  the  election  of  1904  by  a  majority  of  over 
50,000. 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         295 

Except  for  one  omission  I  think  it  is  the  most 
perfect  law  for  the  nomination  of  candidates  by 
direct  vote  ever  enacted.  It  failed  to  make 
provision  for  the  second  choice,  which  permits 
voters  to  indicate  on  the  ballot  not  only  their 
first  choice  of  candidates  for  each  office,  but  a 
second  choice  as  well,  thereby  positively  as 
suring  a  nomination  by  the  group  of  the  party 
which  is  actually  in  the  majority. 

We  struggled  for  a  second  choice  amendment 
to  our  Wisconsin  primary  law  for  nearly  seven 
years,  and  finally  obtained  it  in  the  session  of 
the  legislature  of  last  year  (1911).     I  can  trace 
most  of  the  political  misfortunes  we  have  in 
Wisconsin  since  the  adoption  of  the  primary  law 
to  this  omission.     The  machine  system  of  poli 
tics    requires    nt>   second    choice,   because    Ithe 
boss  determines  who  shall  be  candidates  and  X — 
prevents  rivals  from  dividing  up  the  machine 
vote.     But  it  is  an  essential  part  of  the  Progres-1 
sive  belief  that  there  shall  be  no  boss  system;  no\ 
one  to  give  and  no  one  required  to  take  orders;/  / 
the  field  is  open  to  everybody,  and  so  there  are) 
always  men  to  divide  up  the  Progressive  vote, 


296         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

while  the  machine  vote  is  solid.  Thus  the 
I  machine  can  win  out  even  when  the  Progressives 
are  in  the  vast  majority. 

This  happened  in  the  primary  election  for 
United  States  Senator  in  Wisconsin  in  1908. 
There  were  two  Progressives  in  the  field  against 
Stephenson,  both  very  strong  men  —  McGovern, 
now  governor,  and  State  Senator  Hatton  —  and 
they  split  the  Progressive  vote  between  them. 
Stephenson  thus  slipped  in  between  and  received 
a  plurality  of  the  votes. 

It  was  this  omission  of  the  second  choice 
provision,  with  the  opening  it  gave  for  a  man  like 
Stephenson  to  spend  a  large  sum  of  money  to 
secure  his  nomination  (his  recorded  expenditure 
was  $107,000),  that  has  furnished  the  chief  cause 
of  complaint  against  the  Wisconsin  primary 
system.  People  do  not  stop  to  think  that  under 
the  old  caucus  and  convention  system  the 
amounts  spent  in  an  election  were  often  many 
times  as  great  and  no  account  was  made  of 
them.  A  second  choice  provision,  such  as  we 
now  have  in  Wisconsin,  ought  to  be  the  law  of 
every  state  which  has  a  direct  primary. 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         297 

We  needed  one  thing  more  in  connection  with 
the  primary  law,  and  that  was  a  stringent  Cor 
rupt  Practices  Act  to  prevent  the  corrupt  use 
of  money  in  primaries  and  in  elections.  WTe 
tried  hard  to  get  such  a  law  in  1903.  Wre  failed 
at  that  time,  but  Wisconsin  now  has  an  admir 
able  measure  which  will  make  it  impossible  for 
any  candidate  to  spend  money  as  Mr.  Stephen- 
son  did  in  1908. 

One  other  measure  of  great  importance  also 
came  up  strongly  in  the  session  of  1903.  It  grew 
directly  out  of  our  miserable  experience  with 
the  lobby,  and  was  designed  to  abolish  these 
corrupt  influences  which  had  for  decades  con 
trolled  legislation  in  Wisconsin.  We  began 
fighting  for  such  legislation  as  early  as  1897,  and 
I  urged  it  in  messages  to  three  different  legis 
latures,  but  it  was  not  until  1905  that  our  anti- 
lobby  law  was  finally  enacted.  The  Wisconsin 
statute  requires  all  lobbyists  or  represent 
atives,  employed  and  paid  for  their  services, 
to  register  themselves  in  the  office  of  the 
secretary  of  state,  specifying  the  character 
of  their  employment,  and  by  whom  employed. 


298         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

The  statute  prohibits  such  lobby  agents  or 
counsel  from  having  any  private  communication 
with  members  of  the  legislature  upon  any 
subject  of  legislation.  The  lobby  is  given  the 
widest  opportunity  to  present  publicly  to  legis 
lative  committees,  or  to  either  branch  of  the 
legislature,  any  oral  argument;  or  to  present  to 
legislative  committees  or  to  individual  members 
of  the  legislature  written  or  printed  arguments 
in  favor  of  or  opposed  to  any  proposed  legis 
lation;  provided,  however,  that  copies  of  such 
written  or  printed  arguments  shall  be  first  filed 
in  the  office  of  the  secretary  of  state.  This 
law  rests  upon  the  principle  that  legislation  is 
public  business  and  that  the  public  has  a  right 
to  know  what  arguments  are  presented  to  mem 
bers  of  the  legislature  to  induce  them  to  enact 
or  defeat  legislation,  so  that  any  citizen  or  body 
of  citizens  shall  have  opportunity,  if  they  desire, 
to  answer  such  arguments. 

Since  I  came  to  the  United  States  Senate  I 
have  steadfastly  maintained  the  same  position. 
Again  and  again  I  have  protested  against  secret 
hearings  before  Congressional  committees  upon 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

the  public  business.  I  have  protested  against 
the  business  of  Congress  being  taken  into  a 
secret  party  caucus  and  there  disposed  of  by  / 
party  rule;  I  have  asserted  and  maintained  at  all 
times  my  right  as  a  public  servant  to  discuss  in 
open  Senate,  and  everywhere  publicly,  all  legis-  | 
lative  proceedings,  whether  originating  in  the  ' 
executive  sessions  of  committees  or  behind 
closed  doors  of  caucus  conferences.  When  the 
Tariff  bill  on  wool  and  woolens  was  in  con 
ference  between  the  two  houses  last  summer,  I 
was  determined  as  a  member  of  that  conference 
that  its  sessions  should  be  held,  if  possible,  with 
open  doors.  I  waited  upon  Senator  Bailey,  a 
member  of  the  committee,  and  told  him  that  I 
proposed  to  announce  that  I  should  freely  dis 
cuss  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  any  action  taken 
by  the  committee,  and  that  if  support  could  be 
had  I  should  move  to  make  the  sessions  of 
the  committee  open  and  public.  Indeed,  both 
Senator  Bailey  and  myself  had  taken  the  same 
position  when  an  attempt  had  previously  been 
made  to  hold  secret  sessions  of  the  Committee 
on  Finance  so  that  Secretary  Knox  might  give 


300         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

in  private  his  testimony  on  the  Reciprocity  bill. 
At  that  time  I  moved  that  a  stenographer  be 
present  and  that  all  questions  and  answers  be 
taken  down  and  made  of  record,  and  declared 
that  I  would  not  be  bound  by  any  action  of  the 
committee  against  making  use  of  the  testimony 
of  Secretary  Knox  if  I  felt  it  to  be  my  duty  in 
discussing  the  Reciprocity  bill  on  the  floor  of 
the  Senate.  I  was  assured  by  Senator  Bailey 
that  he  was  heartily  in  favor  of  that  course. 
When,  later,  the  committee  on  conference  on 
the  Tariff  bill  on  wool  and  woolens  met  in  the 
rooms  of  the  Finance  Committee,  Senator 
Bailey  moved  that  the  sessions  of  the  conference 
committee  be  held  with  open  doors.  Objection 
was  made,  but  finally,  on  a  roll  call,  Bailey's 
motion  carried,  the  doors  were  opened,  and  the 
representatives  of  the  newspapers  were  admitted. 
For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  Congress  a 
conference  committee  transacted  its  important 
business  under  the  eye  of  the  public,  with  re 
porters  in  attendance. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  this  precedent  will  be 
followed  by  all  the  regular  committees  and  con- 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         301 

ference  committees  of  Congress  in  dealing  with 
every  subject  of  legislation.  The  propriety  of 
considering  treaties  and  matters  affecting  foreign 
relations  in  executive  session  is  conceded,  al 
though  there  are  unquestionably  cases  where 
public  interest  would  demand  open  sessions  and 
full  publicity  even  when  treaties  with  foreign 
nations  are  under  consideration.  A  case  in 
point  is  the  Honduran  Treaty,  now  pending,  in 
which  it  is  proposed  that  this  government  shall 
become  surety  for  and  guarantee  loans  aggrega 
ting  millions  of  dollars  made  to  the  Honduran 
Government  by  American  capitalists. 

Evil  and  corruption  thrive  best  in  the  dark. 
Many,  if  not  most,  of  the  acts  of  legislative  dis 
honesty  which  have  made  scandalous  the  pro 
ceedings  of  Congress  and  state  legislatures 
could  never  have  reached  the  first  stage  had 
they  not  been  conceived  and  practically  con 
summated  in  secret  conferences,  secret  caucuses, 
secret  sessions  of  committees,  and  then  carried 
through  the  legislative  body  with  little  or  no 
discussion.  I  hope  to  see  the  rules  of  the  Senate 
and  House  of  Representatives  so  changed  as  to 


302         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

require,  in  plain  terms,  every  legislative  com 
mittee  to  make  and  keep  for  public  inspection 
a  record  of  every  act  of  the  committee. 

In  a  great  body  like  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  nearly  all  legislation  is  controlled 
by  committees.  The  sanction  of  a  committee 
goes  a  long  way.  The  life  of  a  Congressman,  a 
Senator,  is  a  busy  one;  he  is  worked  early  and 
late,  and  in  some  measure  he  must  depend  for 
the  details  of  legislation  upon  the  committees 
appointed  for  the  purpose  of  perfecting  the 
legislation.  And  as  the  business  of  the  country 
grows  and  the  subjects  of  legislation  multiply, 
so  committee  action  upon  bills  becomes  more 
and  more  important.  We  spend  a  vast  sum  of 
money  to  print  a  Congressional  Record  in  order 
that  the  public  may  be  made  acquainted  with 
the  conduct  of  their  business,  and  then  we  trans 
act  the  important  part  of  the  business  behind 
the  locked  doors  of  a  committee  room.  The 
public  believes  that  the  Congressional  Record 
tells  the  complete  story,  when  it  is  in  reality 
only  the  final  chapter. 

The  whole  tendency  of  democracy,   indeed,  is 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         303 

toward  more  openness,  more  publicity.  In  the 
early  days  of  this  government  not  only  were  the 
committee  meetings  secret,  but  during  the  first 
twro  or  three  administrations  even  the  sessions 
of  the  Senate  itself  were  held  behind  closed  doors. 
Discussing  this  subject  in  the  Senate  in  con 
nection  with  the  Lorimer  case,  I  quoted  these 
stirring  words  of  Charles  Sumner,  delivered  on 
the  floor  of  the  Senate  over  forty  years  ago : 

"Something  has  been  said  about  Senatorial 
caucuses.  Now,  I  shall  make  no  revelation,  but 
I  shall  repeat  what  for  ten  years  I  have  said  in 
this  Chamber  as  often  as  occasion  allowed.  A 
Senatorial  caucus  is  simply  a  convenience.  It 
is  in  no  respect  an  obligation  on  anybody.  To 
hold  that  it  is,  is  infinitely  absurd  and  uncon 
stitutional.  We  are  all  under  the  obligation  of 
an  oath,  as  Senators,  obliged  to  transact  the 
public  business  under  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  We  have  no  right  to  desert  this 
Chamber  and  go  into  a  secret  conclave,  and  there 
dispose  of  the  public  business.  .  .  .  The 
Senatorial  caucus  is  secret;  it  is  confidential,  if 
you  please;  it  has  no  reporters  present;  it  is  not 


304         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

in  the  light  of  day.  Why,  sir,  to  take  the  public 
business  from  this  Chamber  and  carry  it  into 
such  a  caucus  is  a  defiance  of  reason  and  of  the 
best  principles  of  government." 

I  came  out  of  the  legislative  session  of  1903 
in  good  health,  and  spent  that  summer  and  fall 
chiefly  upon  the  lyceum  and  chautauqua  plat 
forms. 

The  chautauqua  is  truly  an  educational  force 
in  the  life  of  the  country.  It  is  organized  widely 
among  the  towns  and  smaller  cities  in  nearly  all 
of  the  northern  and  western  states.  It  is 
strongly  supported  by  the  well-to-do  farmers. 
The  people  who  patronize  the  chautauquas 
will  not  only  listen  to,  but  also  they  demand,  the 
serious  discussion  of  public  questions.  I  called 
my  address  "Representative  Government,"  but 
it  was  never  the  same.  I  spoke  extemporane 
ously,  and  in  connection  with  my  addresses 
related  my  experience  in  Wisconsin.  It  was  the 
struggle  between  democracy  and  privilege  which 
I  tried  to  place  on  view,  and  I  illustrated  it 
directly  from  the  most  recent  events  in  my  own 
state.  In  that  way  it  always  had  a  live,  fresh 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS        305 

interest.  Wrhenever  I  spoke  in  Wisconsin  I  never 
accepted  any  payment,  not  even  expenses,  and 
elsewhere,  if  the  address  was  free  to  the  public, 
I  would  not  accept  pay.  In  this  way  I  have 
made  a  thousand  or  more  chautauqua  and 
lyceum  addresses,  and  have  pretty  well  covered 
all  the  states  of  the  union  except  New  England 
and  the  Old  South.  I  believe  these  addresses 
were  the  most  practically  effective  work  I  have 
done,  in  a  national  way,  for  the  Progressive 
movement,  though  it  cannot  well  be  separated  / 
from  my  work  as  a  public  official.  For  it  is  my 
work  as  a  public  official  that  has  made  my  work 
on  the  platform  count.  If  I  had  simply  dis 
cussed  principles  and  their  relation  to  the  pro 
ceedings  of  Congress  and  state  legislatures  in  a 
theoretical  way,  I  could  not  have  given  those 
addresses  the  living,  vital  interest  which  it  was 
possible  to  give  them  where  I  had  been  a  part 
of  the  official  proceedings  which  I  presented  to 
my  audiences. 

Our  Progressive  cause  in  Wisconsin  has  always 
been  supported  by  what  is  more  technically 
called  the  labor  vote.  Many  years  ago,  in 


306         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

Wisconsin,  it  was  customary,  shortly  before 
election,  for  the  bosses  to  distribute  four  or  five 
thousand  dollars  among  certain  of  the  old-time 
labor  leaders,  who  were  expected  thereafter  to 
deliver  the  labor  vote  to  the  Republican  ticket. 
I  have  heard  it  said  many  times  back  in  those 
years:  "Oh,  never  mind  about  the  labor  vote; 
Payne  wTill  take  care  of  that." 

When  we  began  our  fight  on  the  bosses  they 
resorted  to  their  usual  methods  of  influencing  the 
labor  leaders.  The  railroads  and  the  big  ship 
pers  also  tried  actively  to  vote  their  employees 
against  me,  but  after  we  had  begun  to  be  suc 
cessful,  after  the  wage-earners  had  begun  to  see 
what  our  movement  meant,  we  got  more  and 
more  of  their  support.  This  was  noticeable  in 
the  campaign  of  1902.  In  our  great  crucial 
campaign  of  1904,  of  which  I  shall  speak  in 
the  next  chapter,  this  effort  to  influence  the  labor 
vote  reached  its  height.  It  was  the  final  struggle. 
Congressman  Babcock  personally  called  upon 
large  employers  of  labor  and  urged  them  either 
to  prevent  their  men  going  to  the  caucuses 
to  vote  for  La  Follette  or  else  to  devise  means 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         307 

of  controlling  the  caucuses.  In  a  number  of 
cases  railroad  men  were  notified  to  be  at  the 
roundhouse  or  shop  at  a  given  time  when  the 
superintendent  would  arrive  in  a  special  car 
to  address  them.  The  talk  was  something  like 
this:  "It  is  to  our  interest  and  therefore  to 
yours  that  this  man  La  Follette  be  defeated  for 
nomination.  Your  bread  and  butter  depends 
on  your  standing  by  the  railroads  at  the  cau 
cuses."  And  when  the  caucuses  were  held, 
division  superintendents  and  other  officials  often 
stood  at  the  entrances  to  the  voting  places  and 
handed  specially  prepared  ballots  to  the  railroad 
employees  as  they  came  up  to  vote. 

But  in  spite  of  all  these  efforts  I  always  felt, 
in  fact  knew,  that  I  had  the  sympathy  of  these 
employees.  Several  times  in  the  campaign 
which  followed  this  desperate  attempt  to  control 
the  caucuses  have  I  had  a  conductor,  as  he  \vas 
taking  my  ticket,  lean  down  and  whisper: 

"It's  all  right,  Governor;  they  had  us  where 
we  were  obliged  to  take  orders  in  the  caucus,  but 
they  can't  watch  us  in  the  election.  The  Aus 
tralian  ballot  will  give  us  a  chance." 


308         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

And  in  many  cases  they  would  say  nothing, 
but  grip  my  hand  hard. 

I  have  always  had  respect  for  the  man  who 
labors  with  his  hands.  My  own  life  began  that 
way.  Manual  labor,  industry,  the  doing  of  a 
good  day's  work,  was  the  thing  that  gave  a 
man  standing  and  credit  in  the  country  neigh 
borhood  where  I  grew  up.  We  all  worked  hard 
at  home,  and  the  best  people  I  ever  knew 
worked  with  their  hands.  I  have  always  had 
a  feeling  of  kinship  for  the  fellow  who  carries 
the  load  —  the  man  on  the  under  side.  I  un 
derstand  the  man  who  works,  and  I  think  he 
has  always  understood  me.  In  the  campaign 
of  1904  I  used,  often,  the  verses  of  a  poem  of 
Whittier's  called  "The  Poor  Voter  on  Election 
Day:" 

The  proudest  now  is  but  my  peer, 

The  highest  not  more  high; 
To-day,  of  all  the  weary  year, 

A  king  of  men  am  I. 
To-day,  alike  are  great  and  small, 

The  nameless  and  the  known; 
My  palace  is  the  people's  hall, 

The  ballot-box  my  throne! 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         309 

In  some  cases  where  the  labor  vote  was  very 
heavy  the  employers  allowed  La  Follette  dele 
gates  to  be  elected  and  afterward  gave  them  the 
alternative  of  losing  their  jobs  or  violating  their 
political  faith.  In  Eau  Claire  County  we  met 
with  an  example  of  this  sort.  We  had  there  a 
very  strong  supporter  who  came  to  us  and  told 
us  exactly  his  situation.  He  said  he  had  been 
threatened  with  loss  of  his  job  if  he  voted  for  me 
in  the  convention,  and  while  it  would  be  a  great 
hardship  for  him  to  lose  his  position  he  could 
not  reconcile  himself  to  obey  their  orders.  W7e 
found  that  we  could  spare  his  vote  and  save  his 
job,  so  he  voted  against  us  with  our  full  under 
standing  of  the  reason. 

As  soon  as  I  became  governor  we  began  press 
ing  for  new  labor  legislation  which  should  place 
Wisconsin  on  a  level  with  the  most  progressive 
state  or  nation;  and  it  can  be  truthfully  said, 
since  the  passage  last  year  of  a  law  creating  an 
Industrial  Commission,  that  Wisconsin  now 
easily  leads  the  states  of  the  union  in  its  body 
of  labor  legislation.  Child  labor  has  been 
reduced  and  the  children  kept  in  the  schools. 


310         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

Excessive  hours  for  women  workers  have  been 
abolished.  The  doctrine  of  comparative  neg 
ligence  has  been  adopted  for  railways,  and  the 
long  hours  of  trainmen  have  been  done  away 
with.  The  most  carefully  drawn  of  all  work 
men's  compensation  laws  has  been  adopted, 
and  the  employers  of  the  state  have  organized, 
under  a  new  insurance  law,  an  employer's 
mutual  insurance  association,  similar  to  those 
which  in  Germany  have  greatly  reduced  ac 
cidents  and  compensated  the  workmen.  Many 
other  laws  have  been  added  and  old  ones 
strengthened,  and  finally  our  new  Industrial 
Commission,  modeled  after  the  Railroad  Com 
mission,  has  been  placed  in  charge  of  all  the 
labor  laws,  with  full  power  to  enforce  the  laws 
and  protect  the  life,  health,  safety  and  welfare  of 
employees.  This  commission  has  employed 
one  of  the  leading  experts  of  the  United  States 
to  cooperate  with  employers  in  devising  ways 
and  means  of  safety  and  sanitation. 

The  commission  consists  of  three  members, 
appointed  by  Governor  Me  Govern:  Charles 
Crownhart,  a  very  able  lawyer  and  devoted  to 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         311 

public  service;  Dr.  John  R.  Commons,  the 
great  constructive  economist  and  a  leading 
authority  on  labor  legislation,  and  Joseph  D. 
Beck,  who  had  served  the  state  most  efficiently 
as  Commissioner  of  Labor  and  Industrial  Sta 
tistics.  The  Industrial  Commission  is  a  new 
departure  of  the  first  importance  —  the  first 
of  its  kind  in  the  country.  By  this  measure 
the  state  assumes  to  control  and  regulate  the 
most  difficult  questions  of  sanitation,  safety, 
health  and  moral  well-being  which  affect  the 
workers  of  the  state.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
important  innovations  we  have  made,  one 
charged  with  the  greatest  possibilities  for  im 
proving  the  lives  of  working  men  and  women, 
and  one  which  should  be  watched  and  studied 
by  every  one  who  is  interested  in  forward 
movements. 

In  all  of  my  campaigns  in  Wisconsin  I  had 
been  much  impressed  with  the  fact  that  women 
were  as  keenly  interested  as  men  in  the  ques 
tions  of  railroad  taxation,  reasonable  transporta 
tion  charges,  direct  primaries,  and  indeed  in  the 
whole  Progressive  program.  They  compre- 


312         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

bended  its  relation  to  home  life  and  all  domestic 
problems.  They  understood  what  it  meant  for 
the  railroads  to  escape  paying  a  million  dollars 
of  justly  due  taxes  every  year.  They  knew 
that  the  educational  system  of  the  state  must 
be  supported;  that  every  dollar  lost  to  the 
educational,  charitable,  and  other  institutions 
of  the  state  through  tax  evasions  by  railroad 
and  other  corporations  must  be  borne  by  added 
taxes  upon  the  homes  and  farms.  They  un 
derstood  that  freight  rates  were  a  part  of  the 
purchase  price  of  everything  necessary  to  their 
daily  lives;  that  when  they  bought  food  and 
fuel  and  clothing  they  paid  the  freight.  As  a 
result  my  political  meetings  were  generally  as 
largely  attended  by  women  as  by  men,  and  these 
questions  were  brought  directly  into  the  home 
for  study  and  consideration.  It  has  always  been 
inherent  with  me  to  recognize  this  co-equal 
interest  of  women.  My  widowed  mother  was  a 
woman  of  wise  judgment;  my  sisters  were  my 
best  friends  and  advisers;  and  in  all  the  work 
of  my  public  life  my  wife  has  been  my  constant 
companion. 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         313 

Mrs.  La  Follette  and  I  were  classmates  at  the 
University  of  Wisconsin,  and  naturally  we  had 
common  interests.  The  first  year  of  our  mar 
ried  life,  in  order  to  strengthen  myself  in  the  law, 
I  was  re-reading  Kent  and  Blackstone  at  home 
evenings,  and  she  joined  me.  This  led  later  to 
her  taking  the  law  course  as  an  intellectual  pur 
suit.  She  never  intended  to  practise.  She  was 
the  first  woman  graduated  from  the  Wisconsin 
University  Law  School. 

On  one  occasion  when  my  firm  was  over 
whelmed  with  work  at  the  circuit,  and  the  time 
was  about  to  expire  within  which  our  brief 
should  be  served  in  a  supreme  court  case,  it 
having  been  stipulated  that  the  case  should  be 
submitted  without  argument,  I  proposed  to  Mrs. 
La  Follette  that  she  prepare  the  brief.  It  was 
a  case  which  broke  new  ground,  and  her  brief 
won  with  the  Supreme  Court. 

About  a  year  afterward  Chief  Justice  Lyon, 
in  the  presence  of  a  group  of  lawyers,  compli 
mented  me  on  the  brief  which  my  firm  had  filed 
in  that  case,  saying,  "It  is  one  of  the  best  briefs 
submitted  to  the  court  in  years,  and  in  writing 


314        RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

the  opinion  I  quoted  liberally  from  it  because 
it  was  so  admirably  reasoned  and  so  clearly 
stated."  I  said,  "Mr.  Chief  Justice,  you  make 
me  very  proud.  That  brief  was  written  by  an 
unknown  but  very  able  member  of  our  bar  - 
altogether  the  brainiest  member  of  my  family. 
Mrs.  La  Toilette  wrote  that  brief,  from  start 
to  finish." 

Although  Mrs.  La  Follette  never  made  any 
further  practical  use  of  her  law,  this  training 
brought  her  into  closer  sympathy  and  compan 
ionship  with  me  in  my  professional  work,  and  in 
my  political  career  she  has  been  my  wisest  and 
best  counsellor.  That  this  is  no  partial  judg 
ment,  the  Progressive  leaders  of  Wisconsin  who 
welcomed  her  to  our  conferences  would  bear 
witness.  Her  grasp  of  the  great  problems, 
sociological  and  economic,  is  unsurpassed  by 
any  of  the  strong  men  who  have  been  associated 
with  me  in  my  work. 

It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  women  should 
play  a  larger  part  than  they  do  in  the  greater 
housekeeping  of  the  state.  One  of  the  factors 
in  the  improvement  of  conditions  in  Wisconsin 


Copyright,  by  Harris  &•  Ewing 

MRS.   ROBERT   M.   LA   FOLLETTE 

(A  late  portrait) 
"She  has  been  my  wisest  and  best  counselor." 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         315 

has  been  the  selection  of  able  women  for  posi 
tions  in  the  state  service,  particularly  upon 
those  boards  having  to  do  with  the  welfare  of 
women.  by/; 

In  my  first  message  to  the  legislature,  after 
I  became  governor,  I  recommended  the  ap 
pointment  of  a  woman  as  factory  inspector,  and 
also  that  women  should  serve  on  the  Boards  of 
University  and  Normal  School  Regents,  and  on 
the  very  important  Board  of  Control,  which  has 
charge  of  all  the  charitable,  penal  and  reforma 
tory  institutions  of  the  state. 

At  first,  even  in  our  own  camp,  there  was 
some  opposition  to  the  appointment  of  women 
in  the  state  service  —  a  survival  of  the  old 
political  belief  that  "the  boys  ought  to  have 
the  places"  — and  especially  the  places  that 
carried  good  salaries  —  but  that  feeling  has 
disappeared  before  the  evidences  of  the  high 
character  of  the  services  which  these  women 
have  rendered. 

Mrs.  La  Follette  and  other  interested  women 
exercised  a  helpful  influence  in  securing  the  legis 
lation  and  in  making  the  appointments. 


316         RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

Dr.  Almah  J.  Frisby,  a  practising  physician 
of  Milwaukee,  was  made  a  member  of  the  Board 
of  University  Regents.  She  was  graduated  from 
the  university  in  1878,  and  is  a  woman  of  excep 
tionally  strong  character  and  high  ability.  She 
remained  on  the  Board  until  I  appointed  her  to  a 
place  on  the  State  Board  of  Control  of  Chari 
table  and  Penal  Institutions,  where  she  has  since 
served  with  great  usefulness. 

To  succeed  Doctor  Frisby  on  the  Board  of 
Regents  I  selected  Kate  Sabin  Stevens,  a  sister 
of  Ellen  Sabin,  President  of  Downer  College, 
Milwaukee,  and  wife  of  Judge  E.  Ray  Stevens. 
She  was  a  graduate  of  the  university,  had  been 
Superintendent  of  Schools  of  Dane  County, 
and  was  especially  qualified  as  a  representative 
woman  for  the  place. 

As  State  Inspector  of  Factories,  Miss  Ida  M. 
Jackson,  now  wife  of  Professor  Charles  T.  Bur 
gess  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  was  chosen, 
—  a  bright  young  woman,  who  through  her 
newspaper  experience  had  become  interested  in 
social  questions,  and  was  well  prepared  for  the 
service. 


RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS         317 

Mrs.  Theodora  Youmans,  of  Waukesha,  was 
placed  on  the  Board  of  Normal  School  Regents, 
a  position  she  has  held  continuously  since.  Mrs. 
Charles  M.  Morris,  of  Berlin,  was  appointed  a 
member  of  the  Wisconsin  Free  Library  Commis 
sion.  Mrs.  Youmans  and  Mrs.  Morris  were  two 
out  of  five  members  selected  on  the  Board  of 
World's  Fair  Commissioners.  They  are  women 
of  tact  and  broad  understanding,  and  unusually 
fitted  for  public  work,  each  having  served  as 
President  of  the  State  Federation  of  Women's 
Clubs,  in  which  they  have  been,  since  its  organi 
zation,  recognized  leaders. 

I  believe  not  only  in  using  the  peculiar  exec 
utive  abilities  of  women  in  the  state  service, 
but  I  cannot  remember  a  time  when  I  did  not 
believe  in  woman  suffrage.  The  great  economic  V 
and  industrial  questions  of  to-day  affect  women 
as  directly  as  they  do  men.  And  the  interests 
of  men  and  women  are  not  antagonistic  one  to 
the  other,  but  mutual  and  coordinate.  Co- 
suffrage,  like  co-education,  will  react  not  to  the 
special  advantage  of  either  men  or  women,  but 
will  result  in  a  more  enlightened,  better  balanced 


318        RAILROAD  TAXATION  LAWS 

citizenship,  and  in  a  truer  democracy.  I  am 
glad  to  say  that  the  legislature  of  Wisconsin 
passed,  at  its  last  session,  a  suffrage  law  which 
will  be  submitted  on  referendum  next  November 
to  the  voters  of  the  state.  I  shall  support  it 
and  campaign  for  it. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT  PRODUCES  BUSINESS 
PROSPERITY:  WHAT  WAS  ACCOMPLISHED  IN  WIS 
CONSIN 

REFORMERS  often  stop  fighting  before 
the  battle  is  really  won :  before  the  new 
territory  is  completely  occupied.  I  felt 
that  the  campaign  of  1904  was  the  very  crux  of 
our  whole  movement.  We  had  passed  our  rail 
road  taxation  and  direct  primary  measures  in 
1903;  but  the  railroad  taxation  law  would  be  a 
barren  victory  until  it  was  supplemented  by  a 
commission  to  control  railroad  rates;  and  the 
direct  nomination  of  candidates  would  fail  un 
less  we  carried  the  election  and  secured  the 
adoption  of  the  primary  bill  at  the  referendum 
that  fall.  Without  the  direct  primary  law  it 
would  be  an  easy  matter  for  the  old  machine  to 
regain  control  of  the  legislature  and  not  only 

319 


320        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

prevent  further  progressive  legislation,  but  undo 
part,  if  not  all,  of  tke  work  already  accomplished. 

I  felt  absolutely  sure  that  another  term,  with 
another  legislature,  would  securely  ground  and 
bulwark  self-government  in  Wisconsin.  I  knew 
that  the  opposition  understood  this  too,  and 
that  they  would  make  the  most  desperate  fight 
in  that  campaign  that  they  had  ever  made.  I 
began,  therefore,  delivering  speeches  both  in 
side  and  outside  the  state  as  early  as  December, 
1903  —  nearly  a  year  before  the  election.  As 
for  the  old  machine,  Congressman  Joseph  W. 
Babcock  early  came  forward  as  commander-in- 
chief.  He  criticised  the  methods  adopted  by 
Phillipp,  Pfister  and  others  in  the  campaign  of 
1902  as  being  too  open  and  noisy.  He  came 
right  to  Madison,  rented  some  rooms  and  began 
what  he  called  a  "gumshoe  campaign."  Men 
were  sent  quietly  about  the  state,  arrangements 
\vere  made  for  controlling  the  employees  of  the 
railroads  and  the  big  industries,  and  the  federal 
office-holders  were  marshaled  for  duty. 

Upon  our  part  the  campaign  of  1904  was  the 
most  comprehensive  of  the  whole  series.  We 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        321 

went  straight  to  the  people  with  the  same  facts 
-  the  same  dry  statistics  —  which  we  had 
used  so  effectively  upon  the  legislature  in  1903. 
We  prepared  ten  different  pamphlets  and  dis 
tributed  over  1,600,000  separate  pieces  of  mail. 
Some  of  these  pamphlets  contained  comparative 
tables  showing  transportation  rates  upon  all  the 
principal  products  shipped  to  market  from  every 
county  seat  in  the  state.  It  placed  side  by  side 
with  these  items  the  cost  of  shipping  the  same 
products  an  equal  distance  from  stations  in 
Illinois  and  Iowa.  In  that  way  it  was  brought 
home  to  every  citizen  in  every  county  just  what 
he  was  sacrificing  in  dollars  and  cents  as  the 
result  of  the  negligence  of  his  representatives 
in  affording  him  the  same  protection  which  his 
neighbors  in  Iowa  and  Illinois  had  secured  many 
years  before.  Even  in  those  two  states  the 
railroads  had  controlled  the  commissions  for  a 
long  period  and  the  rates  had  not  been  lowered 
in  many  years,  though  the  volume  of  traffic 
had  enormously  increased  and  railway  profits 
had  more  than  kept  pace  with  the  big  tonnage. 
In  this  connection  I  want  to  credit  the  Bureau 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

of  Labor  and  Industrial  Statistics,  Mr.  Erickson 
particularly,  as  its  head,  and  his  assistant,  Walter 
Drew,  with  the  aid  rendered  in  constructing 
these  rate  sheets.  It  was  Mr.  Erickson's  mas 
tery  of  this  subject  which  suggested  to  my  mind 
his  fitness  as  a  member  of  the  Wisconsin  Railway 
Commission  when  it  was  later  established  and 
upon  which  he  has  served  with  distinction. 

Two  or  three  wreeks  before  the  close  of  the 
nominating  campaign  we  were  surprised  by  an 
entirely  new  tack  taken  by  the  old  leaders.  Word 
came  that  in  many  counties  second  sets  of  Re 
publican  delegates  were  being  elected  under  such 
circumstances  that  it  could  have  but  one  mean 
ing  —  that  the  opposition  was  laying  the  founda 
tion  either  for  stealing  the  state  convention  or 
else  bolting  it  and  placing  a  third  ticket  in  the 
field.  They  were  desperate:  they  knew  that  it 
was  their  last  chance  to  win  the  state  under  the 
old  system,  that  the  approaching  convention 
would  probably  be  the  last  ever  held  in  the 
state  for  the  nomination  of  candidates,  as  in 
deed  it  proved  to  be. 

When  the  time  arrived  for  the  convention  to 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        323 

meet,  at  Madison,  they  brought  in  a  veritable 
army  of  men.  All  their  leaders  were  there: 
Babcock,  Pfister,  Phillipp,  Spooner  and  Quarles. 
We  realized  that  we  were  facing  a  crisis;  that 
all  we  had  been  struggling  for  in  Wisconsin  might 
be  lost  if  we  permitted  these  men  by  force  or  by 
confusion  to  cast  doubt  upon  the  action  of  the 
convention. 

The  convention  was  called  to  meet  in  the 
university  gymnasium,  the  largest  auditorium 
in  Madison.  We  felt  it  necessary  to  protect  the 
doorkeepers  from  being  rushed  and  swept  aside 
by  a  crowd  of  men  not  entitled  to  seats  as  dele 
gates.  So  during  the  night  before  we  had  con 
structed  at  the  delegates'  entrance  a  barbed  wire 
passage  which  wrould  admit  of  the  delegates 
entering  only  in  single  file.  Stationed  along  the 
line  of  this  fence  we  had  twelve  or  fifteen  of  the 
old  university  football  men  —  fine,  clean,  up 
right  fellows  who  were  physically  able  to 
meet  any  emergency.  Among  them  were  Arne 
Lerum,  "Norsky"  Larson,  "Bill"  Hazzard,  and 
Fred  Kull.  The  machine  crowd  formed  in  a 
body  on  the  capitol  square,  a  mile  from  the 


324        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

university,  and  marched  down  in  large  numbers, 
prepared  to  take  possession  of  the  convention 
hall.  They  had  printed  "fake"  badges  and 
delegates'  tickets  exactly  duplicating  those  is 
sued  by  the  State  Central  Committee  to  all 
regularly  elected  delegates  --  theirs  as  well  as 
ours.  It  was  only  by  placing  initials  on  the 
genuine  badges  and  tickets  at  a  late  hour  that 
our  men  stationed  at  the  gymnasium  entrance 
were  able  to  distinguish  the  genuine  from  the 
spurious.  When  this  army  appeared  at  the 
gymnasium  they  discovered  that  provision  had 
been  made  against  a  rush  and  that  they  had  to 
enter  in  single  file.  Whenever  a  man  presented 
a  counterfeit  credential  he  was  promptly  set 
outside  of  the  wire  fence.  All  these  men,  how 
ever,  came  in  later  with  the  spectators  at  the 
front  entrance  and  found  seats  in  that  portion 
of  the  hall  which  had  been  separated  by  roping 
off  from  the  portion  occupied  by  delegates;  and 
along  that  roping  they  found  another  sturdy 
lot  of  "Norsky"  Larsons.  So  well  was  all  this 
preliminary  work  arranged  that  the  convention 
organized  regularly  and  in  the  best  of  order. 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        325 

The  critical  moment  came  when  Mr.  Rosen- 
berry,  a  machine  member  of  the  State  Central 
Committee,  arose  to  make  his  minority  report 
regarding  the  election  contests.  The  state 
committee,  which  was  composed  partly  of  our 
men  and  partly  of  their  men,  had  tried  out  all  of 
these  contests  before  the  convention  met  and 
they  had  unanimously  seated  enough  of  our 
delegates  to  give  Progressives  a  comfortable 
majority  of  the  convention.  After  the  meeting 
of  the  committee  and  before  the  convention  was 
called  to  order  the  machine  leaders  evidently 
planned  to  repudiate  the  report  of  the  state 
committee,  to  ignore  the  roll  of  delegates  en 
titled  to  seats  for  the  preliminary  organization 
of  the  convention  in  accord  with  all  precedent, 
and  to  seat  their  "  delegates, "  which  the  com 
mittee  had  unanimously  rejected,  and  thus  get 
control  of  the  convention  —  which  they  knew 
would  probably  result  in  a  row. 

As  I  say,  Rosenberry  came  forward  to  make 
a  speech.  It  had  leaked  out  that  the  conclusion 
of  his  speech  was  to  be  the  signal  for  action ;  that 
Rosenberry  would  then  be  on  the  platform,  in  a 


326        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

good  position  to  seize  the  gavel,  and  take  pos 
session  of  the  chair,  with  the  fellows  down  on 
the  floor  all  primed  to  have  him  declared  elected 
chairman.  They  were  simply  going  to  gavel 
it  through,  no  matter  how  much  protest  there 
might  be.  The  convention  was  crowded,  but 
we  reserved  three  or  four  seats  close  to  the  front 
of  the  platform  and  near  the  speaker's  chair, 
where  we  planted  some  more  "Ncrsky"  Larsons 
and  "Bill"  Hazzards.  The  result  of  all  this 
precaution  was  that  they  dared  make  no  move, 
and  the  convention  went  forward  in  the  most 
orderly  way.  Not  an  unparliamentary  thing 
was  done.  They  voted  upon  the  contests  and 
even  upon  the  nominations,  and  of  course  were 
beaten. 

After  the  convention  adjourned  that  day  the 
machine  men  were  so  desperate  that  they  im 
mediately  organized  a  bolt  and  called  a  conven 
tion  at  the  Madison  Opera  House,  which,  we 
learned  afterward,  they  had  rented  weeks  before 
the  caucuses  and  county  conventions  were  held 
upon  which  they  based  their  contests,  no  doubt 
with  just  this  contingency  in  mind.  Addresses 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        327 

were  made  by  Spooner,  Quarles,  Babcock,  and 
others,  and  they  nominated  a  full  state  ticket 
of  their  own.  It  was  the  last  stand! 

They  then  proceeded  to  carry  the  validity  of 
the  regular  convention  into  the  supreme  court, 
which  supported  us  at  every  point,  and  left 
so  little  for  the  bolters  to  stand  upon  that  the 
candidate  for  governor  they  had  nominated  at 
their  convention  withdrew  his  name  from  their 
ticket  and  much  of  their  following  deserted  them. 
Indeed,  their  leaders  soon  began  advising  ma 
chine  men  everywhere  to  vote  the  Democratic 
ticket  as  the  only  way  of  beating  me.  In  the 
election  the  bolters'  candidate  received  only 
12,000  votes. 

One  other  bitter  contest  was  to  grow  out  of 
these  conventions.  It  being  a  presidential 
year,  we  elected  four  delegates-at-large  to  the 
national  convention  —  Senator  Stout,  Isaac 
Stephenson,  W.  D.  Connor,  and  myself.  The 
bolters'  convention  also  elected  four  delegates, 
John  C.  Spooner,  J.  V.  Quarles,  J.  W.  Babcock, 
and  Emil  Baensch.  We  therefore  made  ready 
to  meet  the  contest  in  the  convention.  Ex- 


328        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

haustive  briefs  were  prepared  by  Gilbert  E. 
Roe  and  H.  W.  Chyno weth ;  but  when  we  reached 
Chicago  and  the  case  came  before  the  National 
Committee,  they  not  only  would  not  look  at  our 
briefs,  but  they  paid  no  serious  attention  to  the 
oral  arguments.  Of  course  with  Payne  of  Wis 
consin  serving  as  chairman  of  the  National 
Committee,  and  Spooner  and  Babcock  strongly 
influential  with  the  "federal  crowd,"  there  was 
small  chance  for  us,  no  matter  what  our  claims 
might  be. 

The  hearing  before  the  committee  was  a 
grotesque  farce.  Payne  made  a  pretense  of 
fairness  by  withdrawing  as  presiding  officer  and 
called  United  States  Senator  Scott  of  West 
Virginia  to  the  chair.  While  the  arguments 
were  being  made,  the  members  of  the  committee 
strolled  about  the  room  or  chatted  with  each 
other  in  their  seats.  The  few  who  gave  atten 
tion  interrupted  our  counsel  so  constantly  with 
questions  manifestly  designed  to  prevent  them 
from  submitting  a  succinct  and  intelligible  state 
ment  of  the  case,  that  neither  had  an  oppor 
tunity  to  finish  his  argument  in  the  time  allotted. 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT         329 

As  soon  as  that  time  had  expired,  without  even 
looking  at  the  documents  which  had  been  pre 
sented,  including  the  printed  briefs,  the  verified 
statement  of  the  case,  the  printed  case  and  the 
affidavits,  the  committee  refused  to  permit  us 
to  be  seated  as  delegates  in  the  convention. 

There  still  remained  for  us  the  privilege  of 
submitting  our  case  to  the  Committee  on 
Credentials,  appointed  by  the  convention  after 
it  was  organized.  Such  a  committee  is  made 
up  of  one  representative  from  each  state. 
Spooner,  Babcock,  Payne  and  their  associates 
on  the  National  Committee  and  in  the  United 
States  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives 
promptly  set  at  work  with  the  various  delega 
tions  to  secure  right  men  from  each  delegation 
for  the  Committee  on  Credentials.  I  have  been 
told  since  by  men  who  were  in  that  national 
convention  that  they  were  approached  and 
urged  to  see  to  it  that  the  committeeman  on 
credentials  from  their  delegation  was  warned 
that  under  no  circumstances  should  this  Wis 
consin  movement  be  allowed  to  spread;  that  La 
Follette  was  a  dangerous  man,  and  that  unless 


330        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

lie  could  be  stopped  right  there,  he  would  ulti 
mately  break  up  the  Republican  party  in  the  na 
tion  as  he  had  broken  it  up  in  Wisconsin.  Under 
'  these  circumstances  we  decided  not  to  submit 
our  case  to  the  Committee  on  Credentials,  but 
instead  to  file  with  the  committee  a  statement 
setting  forth  the  reasons  for  our  decision.  I 
drafted  such  a  statement;  the  four  of  us  signed 
it,  filed  it  with  the  committee  —  and  went  back 
to  Wisconsin  to  take  up  the  campaign  for  the  fall 
election. 

In  anticipation  of  the  kind  of  campaign  which 
I  had  determined  to  conduct  that  year  I  had 
secured  the  incorporation  in  the  state  platform 
of  a  declaration  which  read  as  follows: 

"We  believe  that  platform  pledges  are  sacred 
obligations  binding  upon  every  member  of  the 
party;  that  the  candidates  of  the  party  become 
its  trusted  agents  to  execute  in  good  faith  its 
promises  to  the  voters;  that  the  acceptance  of 
any  candidate  of  any  office  to  the  duties  of 
which  platform  promises  may  relate  imposes 
upon  the  candidate  the  obligation  to  the  party 
and  to  the  voter  to  aid  in  redeeming  every 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        331 

pledge  in  letter  and  spirit;  that  to  receive  the 
vote  of  the  citizen  as  the  candidate  of  the  party 
which  has  promised  the  legislation  and  then  to 
oppose  such  legislation,  or  to  connive  at  its 
defeat,  is  a  fraud  upon  the  voter  and  deprives 
him  of  his  right  of  suffrage  as  effectually  as 
though  he  were  disfranchised  by  law. 

"That  the  platform  pledges  of  both  parties 
have  been  openly  and  flagrantly  violated  in 
Wisconsin  must  be  regarded  as  the  political 
history  of  the  last  six  years.  Legislation  prom 
ised  by  the  accredited  delegates  of  the  Repub 
lican  party  has  been  defeated  session  after 
session  by  the  members  of  the  party  chosen  from 
its  ranks  to  represent  it  in  the  legislature. 
Sometimes  these  men  have  secured  the  votes 
of  constituents  by  silent  acquiescence  in  the 
promises  of  the  platform;  sometimes  by  open 
declarations  to  support  the  legislation  pledged 
by  the  party;  in  either  case,  as  trustees  of  the 
honor  of  the  party  and  the  rights  of  the  voter 
and  taxpayer,  they  are  guilty  of  having  betrayed 
their  trust.  No  party  can  retain  and  no  party 
deserves  to  retain  the  confidence  and  support 


332        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

of  the  citizen  if  it  knowingly  entraps  him  to  vote 
for  candidates  who  repudiate  its  pledged  obliga 
tion.  The  regular  party  organization  can  there 
fore  regard  as  the  candidates  of  the  Republican 
party  for  state  and  legislative  offices  only  such 
men  as  are  pledged  to  its  support,  and  whose  rec 
ord  and  good  faith  are  above  question.  .  .  ." 

I  took  that  as  authoritative  support  for  the 
plea  that  only  such  men  should  be  regarded  as 
Republicans  as  pledged  themselves  to  support 
the  principles  and  declarations  of  the  platform 
and  whose  record  assured  fulfilment  of  the 
pledge.  And  in  my  speech  of  acceptance  I  em 
phasized  that. 

In  all  my  campaigning,  covering  a  period  of 
twenty  years,  it  had  been  a  rigid  rule  with  me 
never  to  engage  in  personal  controversy.  I 
assailed  abuses,  attacked  bad  practices  with  all 
the  power  I  could  command,  and  though  the 
newspaper  files  of  that  day  will  record  the  fact 
that  I  was  subjected  to  every  form  of  abuse  and 
misrepresentation,  I  had  not  been  diverted  from 
my  course.  I  saw  clearly  that  if  I  gave  heed  to 
personal  attack  and  retaliated  in  kind  that  the 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        333 

principles  would  be  lost  sight  of  and  the  contest 
degenerate  into  one  of  mere  abuse  and  recrim 
ination.  But  after  my  legislative  experiences 
of  1901  I  had  seen  many  men  returned  to  the 
legislature  of  1903  who  had  made  conspicuously 
bad  records  and  yet  were  able  so  to  confuse  the 
issues  that  they  could  and  did  secure  their  re 
election.  It  was  plain  to  me  that  the  people 
needed  to  be  educated  on  men  as  well  as  meas 
ures.  I  therefore  formulated  my  plan  so  to 
conduct  the  discussion  with  respect  to  men  that 
it  would  be  impersonal  in  its  character  and  would 
go  directly  to  the  record  of  the  representative 
and  deal  with  concrete  facts.  It  seemed  to  me 
logical  and  unanswerable  that  the  people  were 
entitled  to  know  exactly  how  they  were  repre 
sented,  and  that  no  man  had  a  right  to  complain 
if  his  constituents  were  fully  informed  as  to  his 
record  on  every  bill  of  public  interest. 

I  am  free  to  confess  that  it  had  been  my  great 
ambition  to  be  governor  of  Wisconsin,  not  just 
to  be  governor  (for  that  seemed  to  me  in  itself 
but  an  empty  honor),  but  to  be  in  reality  the 
chief  executive  of  the  state;  to  be  a  strong  factor 


334        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

in  securing  legislation  that  should  build  into 
the  life  of  the  people  a  new  order  of  things  —  laws 
that  should  be  a  recognition  of  human  rights, 
ux"'  that  should  make  safe  the  vital  principles  of 
representative  government.  To  aid  in  achiev 
ing  such  results  was  the  realization  of  my  high 
est  ambition.  I  had  gone  through  two  sessions 
of  the  legislature,  through  three  hard  campaigns 
prior  to  that  time ;  I  had  given  to  the  work  some 
of  the  best  years  of  my  life,  and  here  I  was  at 
the  end  of  my  second  term  as  governor  with 
almost  nothing  of  a  lasting  nature  accomplished. 
I  was  determined,  therefore,  to  make  this  a 
campaign  that  should  result  in  the  election  of  a 
legislature  that  would  finally  execute  the  will 
of  the  people.  It  was  an  unheard  of  thing  for 
the  governor  of  the  state  to  "interfere"  in  the 
nomination  of  candidates  for  the  legislature; 
but  I  knew  perfectly  well  that  those  members  of 
the  legislature  who  had  served  the  political 
machine  instead  of  their  constituents  would, 
many  of  them,  seek  renomination  and  reelection 
to  the  legislature,  when  they  would  again  re 
pudiate  their  party  pledges.  And  so,  with  the 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        335 

calling  of  the  caucuses,  I  went  out  into  senate 
and  assembly  districts,  announced  public  meet 
ings  and  executed  the  new  policy  upon  which  I 
had  resolved.  I  did  not  engage  in  personalities ; 
I  did  not  attack  individuals  as  such,  but  I  took 
the  journals  of  the  two  houses  of  the  legislature 
on  to  the  public  platform,  and  presented  fairly 
and  clearly  the  character  of  the  different  meas 
ures  of  public  importance,  and  then  read  from 
the  journal  the  record  vote  of  the  candidate 
seeking  reelection  upon  those  measures.  I 
selected  districts  in  which  those  men  who  had 
wronged  the  public  were  seeking  renomination, 
and  almost  without  exception  in  those  districts 
where  I  held  meetings  I  secured  the  defeat  of 
the  candidates  who  sought  renomination. 

It  was  not  possible  for  one  man  to  cover,  dur 
ing  the  caucus  period,  all  of  the  seventy -two 
counties  of  the  state,  but  I  did  as  well  as  I  could; 
and  in  those  senatorial  and  assembly  districts 
which  I  was  unable  to  reach  and  in  which  Re 
publican  candidates  secured  renomination  whose 
records  would  have  defeated  them  if  they  had 
been  properly  placed  before  their  constituents, 


336        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

I  now  resolved  to  make  the  contest  against  them 
at  the  election,  although  they  were  nominally 
members  of  my  own  party.  Wlierever  I  found 
a  Democratic  nominee  for  the  assembly  or  sen 
ate  whose  standing  was  such  as  to  warrant  con 
fidence  in  his  pledges,  and  who  was  willing  to 
come  into  my  meetings  and  give  assurance  of  his 
support  of  the  measures  for  the  public  good 
embodied  in  the  Republican  platform,  I  be 
sought  the  voters  of  such  legislative  districts  to 
support  him  and  defeat  the  Republican  nominee 
who  had  betrayed  them  in  the  preceding  legis 
latures.  I  utterly  ignored  the  campaign  for 
my  own  election.  In  nearly  one  half  of  the 
counties  of  the  state  I  never  held  a  single  meet 
ing  in  that  campaign.  But  I  picked  out  those 
legislative  districts  that  were  the  battleground 
for  the  accomplishment  of  legislation  and  I  cam 
paigned  those  as  they  had  never  been  campaigned 
before.  I  spoke  forty -eight  days  in  succession, 
never  missing  one  single  day,  excepting  Sundays, 
I  averaged  eight  and  one  quarter  hours  a  day 
on  the  platform.  We  had  two  automobiles,  so 
that  if  one  broke  down  or  got  out  of  order  in  any 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        337 

way  I  could  transfer  to  the  other.  I  began 
speaking  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning.  I 
would  go  into  a  county  and  speak  at  every  little 
hamlet  or  crossroads,  talking  to  small  groups 
of  men  during  the  day,  often  from  the  automo 
bile,  and  sometimes  in  a  store.  Then  we  would 
have  a  meeting  in  the  evening,  probably  at  the 
county  seat,  where  I  always  had  a  large  audi 
ence,  finishing  my  work  about  eleven  o'clock 
at  night.  Some  of  those  night  meetings  were 
enormous;  when  I  closed  the  campaign  at  Mil 
waukee  I  spoke  to  about  10,000  people  for  four 
hours. 

I  took  only  one  meal  a  day  at  the  table  dur 
ing  those  forty -eight  days.  My  noon  luncheon 
consisted  of  a  bottle  of  good  rich  milk  and  two 
slices  of  the  crust  of  bread  buttered,  and  some 
times  a  little  well-cured  cheese  shaved  off  and 
put  in  between.  For  my  supper  I  duplicated 
my  luncheon.  I  got  the  bread  and  milk  at  the 
farmhouses  along  the  road,  and  ate  it  on  the 
way.  It  was  a  real  whirlwind  campaign,  and  I 
came  out  of  it  weighing  only  two  pounds  less 
than  when  I  went  in.  The  opposition  tried 


338        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

for  a  time  to  follow  me  and  catch  my  crowds, 
but  *they  were  soon  worn  out,  and  their  recep 
tion,  just  after  I  had  furnished  my  audiences 
with  the  ammunition  for  asking  concrete  ques 
tions,  was  discouraging,  so  that  they  soon  de 
sisted. 

I  discussed  chiefly  freight  rates.  I  would 
tell  them  how  much  it  cost  them  to  ship  a  car 
load  of  hogs  from  that  town  to  Chicago,  and 
how  much  it  would  cost  an  Iowa  farmer  to  ship 
a  carload  of  hogs  from  his  town  the  same  distance 
to  market.  And  then  I  would  tell  them  that 
we  were  trying  to  create  in  Wisconsin  a  railroad 
commission  to  which  appeal  could  be  made, 
instead  of  to  a  railroad  official,  for  fair  freight 
rates  and  adequate  service.  Then  I  would  take 
the  record  of  the  last  legislature  on  that  ques 
tion.  I  would  say:  "Now,  I  think  you  are 
entitled  to  know  how  your  representative  voted 
on  this  question.  I  am  going  to  make  no  per 
sonal  attack  upon  any  individual,  but  he  is 
\j  your  servant,  and  the  servant  of  all  the  people 
of  this  state.  His  vote  counts  not  only  against 
your  interests,  but  against  the  interests  of  the 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        339 

district  in  which  I  live  as  well,  and  I  am  here 
to-day  to  lay  before  you  his  record,  and  let  you 
then  decide  whether  that  is  the  sort  of  service 
you  want.  There  is  no  politics  in  this  thing;  it 
does  not  matter  whether  you  get  this  legislation 
upon  the  vote  of  a  Republican  or  a  Democrat." 
Then  I  wrould  tell  them  that  I  had  interviewed 
the  candidate  on  the  Democratic  side,  and  found 
him  to  be  a  man  of  integrity,  that  I  had  re 
ceived  from  him  assurance  that  he  would  support 
the  important  legislation  pledged  in  the  Repub 
lican  platform,  and  submitted  to  them  whether 
the  promise  of  this  man  was  not  better  than  the 
performance  of  the  man  who  had  betrayed  them 
in  the  preceding  session. 

And  I  cleaned  up  the  legislature.  That  was 
the  origin  of  the  "roll  call"  which  I  have  since 
used  with  such  effectiveness.  It  is  simply  a 
form  of  publicity,  of  letting  the  light  in  on  dark 
records.  I  have  developed  a  department  called 
"The  Roll  Call"  in  La  toilette's  Magazine 
which  has  presented  accurately  the  records  of 
many  Senators  and  Congressmen,  and  has  been 
instrumental,  I  am  positive,  in  putting  more 


340        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

than  one  bad  Congressman  and  Senator  out  of 
business.  In  my  chautauqua  work  also  I  have 
found  the  roll  call  a  most  potent  instrument  for 
political  regeneration. 

I  was  elected  by  about  50,000,  and  the  direct 
primary  law,  for  which  we  had  campaigned 
vigorously,  carried  by  about  the  same  majority. 
We  also  elected  a  safe  majority  of  both  houses 
of  the  legislature. 

Now,  it  is  never  safe  to  be  satisfied  with  vic 
tory  at  an  election.  The  real  test  comes  later, 
when  the  bills  incorporating  new  principles  are 
written.  It  is  one  thing  to  talk  of  general  prop 
ositions  on  the  stump:  it  is  quite  another  thing 
to  perform  the  careful,  cautious,  thoughtful 
task  of  reducing  those  propositions  into  closely 
worded  legal  provisions  which  will  afterward 
serve  the  public  interest  and  stand  the  scrutiny 
of  the  courts.  The  trouble  comes  when  the 
powerful  opposition  appears  to  cease,  when  the 
skilful  corporation  lawyer  comes  to  you  and 
says: 

"You  shall  have  no  further  opposition.  All 
we  ask  is  that  the  measure  be  fair  and  reason- 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        341 

able.  We  have  had  large  practical  experience, 
and  we  can  make  a  few  suggestions  really  for 
the  good  of  the  legislation." 

He  then  presents  changes  which  seem  very 
plausible,  but  in  which  may  lurk  the  weaknesses 
and  uncertainties  that  will  afterward  lead  the 
court  to  break  down  the  statute  by  construction. 
It  is  then  that  sincere  friends  of  reform  may  be 
misled,  because  they  have  not  the  expert  knowl 
edge  to  meet  the  situation.  At  the  outset  of 
the  legislature  of  1905,  therefore,  we  took  the 
greatest  pains  in  drawing  our  railroad  bill.  We 
got  together  leading  members  of  the  legislature 
and  discussed  the  first  draft  exhaustively:  Sena 
tors  Hatton,  Sanborn,  Martin,  Frear,  Morris,  and 
Assemblymen  Lenroot,  Braddock,  Ekern,  Dahl 
and  others.  Senator  Hatton  was  especially 
helpful  not  only  in  framing  the  bill  but  in  man 
aging  it  in  committee.  Then  I  had  copies  of 
the  bill  retyped,  with  wide  margins,  and  sent 
them  to  disinterested  experts  throughout  the 
country  —  men  like  Commissioner  Prouty,  ex- 
Governor  Larrabee  of  Iowa,  Judge  Reagan  and 
Judge  Cowan  of  Texas,  A.  B.  Stickney,  President 


NJ 
342        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

of  the  Great  Western  Railroad,  and  many  others. 
We  took  all  the  notes  and  criticisms  of  these 
men  and  went  over  our  bill  again  before  it  was 
finally  introduced. 

It  was  a  very  strong  regulatory  bill.  It 
provided  for  a  commission  with  power  not  only 
to  fix  rates  but  to  control  service  and  to  make  a 
complete  physical  valuation  of  all  the  railroad 
property  in  the  state.  It  was  more  sweeping 
than  any  legislation  enacted  by  any  state  up 
to  that  time;  and  there  is  still,  I  believe,  no  law 
which  compares  with  it  —  and  none,  certainly, 
more  successfully  enforced  both  to  the  advan 
tage  of  the  railroads  and  to  that  of  the  people  - 
as  I  shall  show  later. 

Of  course,  the  railroad  representatives  op 
posed  the  bill  at  every  step.  The  hearings  con 
tinued  for  many  weeks,  and  the  strain  was  at 
times  serious. 

While  we  were  in  the  stress  of  the  fight  I  was 
called  one  evening  from  the  dinner  table  to 
answer  the  telephone.  Some  one  said : 

"Hello,  Governor!  how  are  you  getting  on 
with  your  legislation?" 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        343 

I  answered  instantly,  for  I  recognized  his 
voice:  "Colonel  Bryan,  where  are  you?" 

He  told  me  that  he  was  to  speak  in  Milwaukee 
that  night,  and  the  next  day  at  Oshkosh.  I  said: 

"Colonel,  come  this  way.  Some  of  the  best 
provisions  of  our  railroad  bill  are  in  danger. 
Come  this  way  and  help  us." 

He  was  in  doubt  about  being  able  to  do  so 
without  interfering  with  his  engagement  at 
Oshkosh,  but  the  next  morning  a  telegram  from 
him  was  delivered  to  me  at  the  breakfast  table. 
It  said,  "I  am  just  taking  the  train  for  Madison; 
will  arrive  at  10.45." 

I  went  down  to  the  capitol  early  and  called 
into  the  executive  office  several  leading  members 
of  the  legislature,  both  Republicans  and  Demo 
crats.  I  informed  them  Colonel  Bryan  would 
be  in  Madison  that  day  a  couple-  of  hours  be 
tween  trains,  and  suggested  that  the  legislature 
adopt  a  resolution  inviting  him  to  address  them 
in  joint  session  at  about  eleven  o'clock.  This 
suggestion  met  with  the  favor  of  the  men  whom 
I  had  called  in,  and  they  secured  the  passage  of 
the  resolution. 


344        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

I  met  Colonel  Bryan  at  the  train.  He  was  in 
fine  spirits,  keenly  alive  to  the  situation  and 
deeply  interested  in  a  non-partisan  way  in  our 
achieving  the  very  best  results  we  could  in  that 
important  session.  The  galleries  of  the  assem 
bly  chamber  were  crowded  with  citizens,  and 
all  the  members  of  the  legislature  were  present 
on  the  floor.  I  presented  Colonel  Bryan,  and 
he  made  one  of  the  finest  speeches  I  ever  listened 
to.  He  was  witty  and  eloquent;  he  appealed  to 
the  patriotism  of  the  legislature  without  re 
gard  to  party,  especially  urging  the  Democratic 
members  to  support  our  measure.  He  said  he 
w^as  not  afraid  of  Republicans  stealing  Demo 
cratic  thunder;  that  he  would  be  willing  to  leave 
all  the  good  Democratic  propositions  that  had 
ever  been  advanced  out  on  the  porch  over  night 
if  only  the  Republicans  would  steal  them  and 
enact  them  into  law. 

I  had  Bryan's  speech  taken  down  by  a  stenog 
rapher  and  circulated  it  widely  in  Democratic 
districts,  thus  starting  a  back  fire  on  the  Demo 
cratic  legislators  who  were  doubtful.  The  re 
sult  justified  the  effort.  It  aided  us  materially, 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        345 

and  when  the  bill  came  up  for  the  final  vote 
it  was  passed  unanimously. 

I  have  always  felt  grateful  to  Colonel  Bryan 
for  this  broadminded  and  patriotic  action. 
It  showed  that  his  interest  in  principles  was 
truly  uppermost.  I  first  met  Bryan  near  the 
close  of  the  last  session  of  the  49th  Con 
gress.  I  had  been  defeated  and  was  going  out; 
he  had  just  been  elected  and  was  coming  in. 
He  was  then  a  tall,  slender,  handsome  fellow 
who  looked  like  a  young  divine.  Since  then  I 
have  met  him  very  often,  and  have  come  to 
feel  a  strong  personal  attachment  for  him.  He 
helped  us  often  during  our  long  fight  in  Wiscon 
sin  when  the  Democratic  machine  as  well  as 
the  Republican  machine  was  opposing  the  things 
we  stood  for.  He  helped  us  in  The  Commoner 
with  his  support  of  our  campaign  for  direct 
primaries.  I  have  brought  audiences  to  their 
feet  by  quoting  Bryan  or  by  reading  from  The 
Commoner  his  words  approving  our  measures. 

In  the  campaign  of  1902  efforts  were  made  to 
get  him  to  come  into  Wisconsin  to  speak  in 
behalf  of  the  Democratic  ticket.  I  knew7  that 


346        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

he  did  not  come.  I  did  not  know  why  until 
the  next  summer,  when  I  went  to  Lincoln,  Ne 
braska,  to  speak  at  the  Epworth  League  State 
Assembly.  I  was  resting  in  my  room  in  the 
afternoon  when  there  came  a  knock  at  my  door 
and  Bryan  entered.  I  had  not  seen  him  for 
years.  During  our  conversation  he  told  me 
that  he  could  not  hear  me  speak  that  evening 
as  he  wanted  to,  because  he  had  a  convention 
on  his  hands.  "But,"  he  said,  "I  am  tremen 
dously  interested  in  what  you  are  doing  in  Wis 
consin  and  I  want  to  see  you  succeed.  It  is 
more  important  in  its  example  to  the  country 
than  any  triumph  of  the  Democratic  party  in 
that  state.  I  want  to  see  you  get  a  state  pri 
mary.  I  want  to  see  you  carry  out  your  taxation 
propositions.  I  want  to  see  you  win  out  in 
your  contest  with  the  corporations."  And  he 
went  on,  "I  have  been  supporting  your  cause 
in  The  Commoner,  and  as  long  as  you  are  ad 
vocating  the  things  you  are  now  advocating,  I 
shall  continue  to  support  you.  In  the  last 
campaign  the  Democrats  tried  very  hard  to  get 
me  to  come  into  the  state  to  speak,  but  I  would 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        347 

not  do  it  because  I  did  not  want  to  aid  in  solid 
ifying  the  Democratic  party  against  your  work 
there.  I  wanted  you  to  have  all  the  Democratic 
support  you  could  get  to  take  the  place  of  the 
corporation  Republicans  who  were  attacking 

you." 

There  was  a  strong  minority  in  the  Demo 
cratic  party,  all  through  our  contests,  which 
favored  direct  primaries,  railroad  and  other 
corporate  taxation,  the  regulation  of  railway 
rates  and  services,  and  practically  every  reform 
measure  incorporated  in  the  Republican  state 
platform.  And  though  this  element  of  the 
party  was  not  strong  enough  under  the  caucus 
and  convention  system  to  control  their  state 
conventions  and  frame  the  platforms,  they  were 
independent  and  patriotic  enough  to  use  their 
influence  and  their  votes  in  favor  of  the  prin 
ciples  in  which  they  believed.  Many  thousands 
of  Democrats  in  Wisconsin  voted  for  Repub 
lican  members  of  the  legislature  known  to  stand 
for  the  enactment  of  these  principles  into  law, 
and  gave  me  active  support  in  my  campaigns 
and  election. 


348        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

I  have  met  Bryan  often  in  recent  years.  We 
have  talked  from  the  same  platforms  and  been 
in  the  same  lyceum  and  chautauqua  courses 
season  after  season.  I  consider  him  a  great 
moral  teacher  and  believe  that  he  has  exerted 
a  powerful  influence  for  good  upon  the  political 
thought  and  standards  of  his  time. 

As  soon  as  the  legislature  passed  our  regu 
lation  law  I  appointed  the  three  commissioners. 
I  had  contended  all  along  for  an  appointive 
rather  than  an  elective  commission.  I  felt  that 
the  state  should  have  the  best  experts  in  the 
country  in  these  positions,  whether  residents  of 
Wisconsin  or  not,  for  much  would  depend  upon 
the  way  in  which  our  new  law  was  administered. 
They  would  have  to  match  wits  with  the  highly 
skilled,  highly  paid  agents  of  the  railroads,  and 
they  would  have  to  make  their  work  pass  the 
critical  consideration  of  the  courts.  Now,  the 
men  best  equipped  by  study  and  experience  for 
such  work  might,  if  the  commission  were  elec 
tive,  prove  very  poor  campaigners.  If  pitted 
against  brilliant  talkers  or  good  "mixers"  they 
might  stand  no  show  at  all.  The  submission 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        349 

also  of  a  large  number  of  candidates  to  the  voter 
to  be  selected  at  a  time  when  his  mind  is  occu 
pied  with  the  consideration  of  questions  under 
discussion,  as  well  as  candidates,  tends  still 
further  to  lessen  the  chances  of  the  selection  of 
the  best  man  for  particular  service.  For  these 
reasons  I  have  always  strongly  advocated  the 
appointive  method  for  filling  all  places  requiring 
the  services  of  trained  experts. 

I  tried  to  persuade  Commissioner  Prouty  of 
the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  to  come 
to  Wisconsin,  organize  our  commission,  and  take 
the  chairmanship,  but  failing  in  that,  I  turned 
at  once  to  the  head  of  the  transportation  depart 
ment  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  B.  H. 
Meyer.  A  native  of  Wisconsin  and  a  graduate 
of  the  university,  Professor  Meyer  had  made 
himself  an  authority  upon  railroad  affairs  in  the 
country.  He  served  upon  our  commission  with 
great  distinction,  resigning  in  January  of  last 
year  (1911)  to  accept  a  position  upon  the  Inter 
state  Commerce  Commission  at  Washington. 
As  another  commissioner  I  appointed  John 
Barnes,  a  Democrat,  one  of  the  foremost  lawyers 


350        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

of  the  state,  who  sacrificed  much  in  taking  the 
place  at  the  salary  we  paid.  He  has  since  been 
elected  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State.  The 
third  member  was  Halford  Erickson,  who  had 
rendered  invaluable  service  as  Commissioner 
of  Industrial  and  Labor  Statistics.  He  had 
practical  knowledge  of  railroading  and  has  stead 
ily  grown  in  power  until  to-day  he  has  no  superior 
as  a  railroad  authority  on  any  state  commission 
in  the  country. 

The  commission  proceeded  with  wisdom. 
Though  under  great  pressure  at  first,  it  refused 
to  consider  complaints  until  it  had  laid  a  broad 
foundation  of  scientific  knowledge.  Expert 
engineers  and  contractors  were  employed  and 
many  months  were  spent  in  making  a  physical 
valuation  of  all  railroad  property  in  the  state. 
This  is  the  logical  first  step  if  you  are  going  to 
fix  rates.  It  then  became  necessary  to  deter 
mine  the  actual  cost  of  maintenance  and 
operation  —  a  very  difficult  matter  in  our  case  - 
because  the  railroads  of  Wisconsin  are  parts  of 
great  systems. 

When  all  this  immense  work  was  done,  the 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        351 

commission  had  the  wisdom  and  foresight  to 
submit  its  findings  to  the  railroad  officials,  who 
went  over  them  and  approved  them.  This 
prevented  disputes  in  the  future  upon  funda 
mental  facts. 

Having  all  this  data,  the  commissioners  began 
to  entertain  complaints,  and  to  fix  rates  upon  a 
basis  which  they  knew  positively  was  fair  to 
the  public  and  fair  to  the  railroads.  They  so 
reduced  transportation  charges  as  to  effect  a 
saving  of  over  $2,000,000  per  year  to  the  people 
of  the  state,  and  they  have  only  made  a  begin 
ning.  Generally  the  rates  of  public  utility  cor 
porations  have  been  reduced,  but  in  some  cases 
the  investigation  showed  that  the  rates  were  too 
low  already  and  the  commission  raised  them. 
The  result  is  that  individuals  may  be  found  in 
communities  where  rates  have  been  increased 
or  have  not  been  promptly  or  radically  reduced 
who  declare  that  the  Railroad  Commission  has 
not  met  expectations  by  "going  after"  the  cor 
porations. 

All  through  our  fight  for  railroad  control  the 
lobbyists  and  the  railroad  newspapers  made  the 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

most  mournful  prophecies  of  disaster:  they 
predicted  that  capital  would  fly  from  the  state, 
that  new  construction  would  stop,  that  equip 
ment  would  deteriorate,  and  so  on  and  so  on. 
What  are  the  facts? 

The  object  of  our  legislation  was  not  to 
"smash"  corporations,  but  to  drive  them  out 
of  politics,  and  then  to  treat  them  exactly  the 
same  as  other  people  are  treated.  Equality 
under  the  law  was  our  guiding  star.  It  is  the 
special  discriminations  and  unjust  rates  that  are 
being  corrected;  the  privileges,  unfair  ad 
vantages,  and  political  corruption  that  have 
been  abolished.  Where  these  do  not  exist  the 
object  has  been  to  foster  and  encourage  business 
activity.  Consequently,  no  state  in  the  union 
to-day  offers  better  security  for  the  savings  of 
its  people  than  Wisconsin.  The  honest  investor, 
or  business  man,  or  farmer,  or  laborer,  who 
simply  wants  equal  opportunity  with  others  and 
security  for  what  he  honestly  earns,  is  protected 
and  encouraged  by  the  laws.  The  mere  specu 
lator,  or  monopolist,  or  promoter,  who  wants 
to  take  advantage  of  others  under  protection  of 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        353 

law,  is  held  down  or  driven  out.  The  result  is 
that  instead  of  falling  behind,  the  state  has 
actually  gone  forward  more  rapidly  than  the 
rest  of  the  country.  This  may  be  shown  by 
incontrovertible  facts  and  figures  in  practically 
every  direction  where  there  has  been  progressive 
legislation  affecting  business. 

The  Railroad  Commission  keeps  accurate 
account  of  all  the  business  of  every  railroad  and 
public  utility  in  the  state.  It  has  jurisdiction 
over  property  whose  total  value  amounts  to 
$450,000,000.  The  books  are  kept  exactly  as 
the  commission  orders  them  to  be  kept.  These 
accounts  show  that  while  during  the  first  five 
years  of  its  existence  the  commission  reduced 
rates  by  more  than  $2,000,000  a  year,  the  net 
earnings  of  the  railroads  of  Wisconsin  increased 
relatively  just  a  little  more  than  the  net  earn 
ings  for  all  railways  in  the  United  States.  The 
increase  in  Wisconsin  was  18.45  per  cent.,  and 
in  the  United  States  it  was  18.41  per  cent. 

How  did  this  come  about?  Simply  from  the 
fact  that  the  decrease  in  rates  for  freight  and 
passengers  was  followed  by  an  enormous  in- 


354        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

crease  in  the  amount  of  freight  and  number  of 
passengers  carried.  So  it  happened  that,  not 
withstanding  the  reduction  in  rates,  there  was  an 
actual  increase  of  nearly  20  per  cent,  in  the  rev 
enue,  while  the  increase  of  revenue  of  all  the  rail 
roads  in  the  United  States  was  only  16  per  cent. 

This  remarkable  increase  took  place  notwith 
standing  the  fact  that,  mainly  on  account  of  the 
greatly  improved  service  which  the  commission 
required  the  railroads  to  perform,  the  expense 
of  railroad  operation  in  Wisconsin  increased  33 
per  cent,  more  than  the  average  rate  of  increase 
in  the  entire  United  States. 

Much  of  what  the  railroads  lost  in  the  reduc 
tion  of  open  rates  that  everybody  shares  they 
recovered  by  being  compelled  to  abolish  free 
passes  and  secret  cut  rates  that  went  only  to 
insiders  and  grafters.  The  special  examiners 
whom  I  appointed  in  1903  uncovered  $5,992- 
731.58  as  Wisconsin's  share  of  rebates  paid  by 
twelve  roads  during  the  six  years  1898  to  1903. 
By  stopping  rebates  alone  the  railroads  have 
gained  at  least  $1,000,000  a  year  toward  off 
setting  $2,000,000  they  lost  by  reduction  of  rates. 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        355 

They  must  also  have  gained  largely  by  the  stop 
page  of  political  contributions  and  expenses. 
The  railroads  to-day  are  gaining  far  more  by 
treating  everybody  on  an  equality  than  they 
could  have  gained  if  their  old  methods  of  politics 
and  secret  favoritism  had  continued. 

It  is  not  claimed  that  railroads  are  both  mak 
ing  and  keeping  more  money  in  Wisconsin  than 
they  did  before  the  progressive  legislation  began. 
Indeed,  they  are  making  more  but  keeping  a 
smaller  proportion  of  it.  They  are  now  paying 
taxes  the  same  as  other  people  on  exactly  what 
their  property  is  worth.  This  they  began  to  do  in 
1904.  Under  the  old  system  of  unequal  tax 
ation,  in  1903,  when  the  railroads  practically 
assessed  themselves,  they  paid  taxes  in  the  state 
amounting  to  $1,711,900.  Under  the  new  sys 
tem,  in  1910,  when  the  State  Tax  Commission 
assessed  them  exactly  like  farms  and  other 
property,  they  paid  $3,142,886.  This  was  an 
increase  of  83  per  cent,  in  the  amount  of  their 
taxes.  But  during  the  years  1903  to  1909  the 
taxes  of  all  railroads  in  the  United  States  in 
creased  only  41  per  cent.  That  is,  railroad  taxa- 


356        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

tion  in  Wisconsin  has  been  increased  by  the 
progressive  legislation  in  six  years  nearly  twice 
as  much  as  the  increase  for  all  of  the  United 
States.  If  this  increase  in  taxation  is  a  hardship 
on  the  railroads,  it  is  simply  because  equal  taxa 
tion  is  always  a  hardship  on  those  who  had  not 
been  formerly  paying  their  equal  share  of  taxes. 

Nor  did  progressive  legislation  stop  new  con 
struction:  During  the  years  1903  to  1909  the 
railroads  invested  in  new  construction  in  Wis 
consin  an  amount  estimated  by  the  Railroad 
Commission  at  $39,000,000,  an  increase  of  15 
per  cent,  over  1903.  This  is  not  a  fictitious 
increase  in  capitalization.  It  is  actual  cash  paid 
out  for  new  road  and  equipment.  A  cash  invest 
ment  by  railroads  of  $6,500,000  a  year  for  six 
years  of  progressive  legislation  refutes  their 
prophecies  of  disaster. 

Other  public  utilities  besides  railroads  were 
not  brought  under  the  control  of  the  Railroad 
Commission  until  1907,  and  it  was  not  until 
1909  that  the  commission  was  able  to  get  their 
accounts  into  such  shape  as  to  be  reliable.  But, 
for  the  year  1910,  compared  with  1909,  notwith- 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        357 

standing  reductions  in  rates  and  improvements 
in  service,  the  water  utilities  increased  their 
net  earnings  7.1  per  cent.,  the  telephone  utilities 
7.1  per  cent.,  gas  utilities  7.4  per  cent.,  and 
electric  utilities  25  per  cent.  These  utilities 
have  even  exceeded  the  railroads  in  the  rate  at 
which  they  have  made  cash  investments  for  new 
construction.  While  the  increase  in  railroad 
construction  has  averaged  2j  per  cent,  a  year 
for  six  years,  the  water  utilities  in  1910  increased 
their  new  construction  of  property  £.5  per  cent, 
over  what  it  had  been  in  1909;  the  telephone 
utilities  5.4  per  cent.,  gas  utilities  1.6  per  cent., 
and  electric  utilities  35.5  per  cent.  For  the 
year  1911  compared  with  1910  the  water  utili 
ties  increased  their  net  earnings  4.3  per  cent., 
the  telephone  utilities  15.9  per  cent.,  gas  utili 
ties  5.7  per  cent.,  and  electric  utilities  24.2  per 
cent.  The  water  utilities  in  1911  increased  their 
property  by  new  construction  4  per  cent,  over 
that  of  1910;  the  telephone  utilities  5. 7  per  cent, 
gas  utilities  6.1  per  cent.,  and  electric  utilities, 
22.1  per  cent. 

Wisconsin  is  certainly  not  driving  capital  out 


358        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

of  the  state  when  the  electrical  business  in  the 
single  year  1910,  after  two  years  of  regulation 
by  the  state,  made  bonafide  new  investments  35 
per  cent,  greater  than  it  had  done  in  1909.  All 
of  this  has  been  accomplished  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  the  Railroad  Commission  has 
reduced  the  rates  charged  by  public  utilities 
$250,000  a  year,  and  has  required  improvements 
in  the  quality  of  service  amounting  to  $125,000 
a  year — a  total  saving  to  the  consumers  of  gas, 
water,  and  electricity  of  $375,000  a  year. 

A  single  example  will  show  how  these  dif 
ferent  results  have  been  brought  about.  In 
April,  1910,  after  two  years  of  careful  investi 
gation,  the  Railroad  Commission,  after  improv 
ing  the  quality  of  service,  reduced  the  maximum 
price  of  electricity  in  the  city  of  Madison  from 
16  cents  to  14  cents  per  kilo  watt -hour,  and 
adjusted  the  other  rates  on  a  lower  basis.  The 
result  was  that  the  sales  of  electricity  increased 
16  per  cent.,  the  net  earnings  increased  24  per 
cent.,  the  company  increased  its  investment  12 
per  cent.,  and  the  saving  to  consumers,  compar 
ing  old  rates  with  new  rates,  was  $18,308  a  year. 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        359 

At  the  end  of  another  fifteen  months,  in  July, 
1911,  after  such  an  increase  in  profits  following 
the  reduction  in  rates,  the  company  accepted 
without  protest  another  reduction  to  12  cents. 
No  additional  investigation  was  necessary,  be 
cause  the  books  of  the  company  had  been  kept  in 
the  way  prescribed  by  the  commission  so  as  to 
show  every  item  of  expense,  income,  and  invest 
ment.  Supervision  by  the  state  commission 
has  thus  proven  of  great  benefit  to  the  private 
corporation  itself. 

How  has  it  been  possible  that  both  the  people 
of  Wisconsin  and  the  investors  in  public  utilities 
have  been  so  greatly  benefited  by  this  regula-  * 
tion?  Simply  because  the  regulation  is  scientific.  \ 
The  Railroad  Commission  has  found  out  through 
its  engineers,  accountants,  and  statisticians  what 
it  actually  costs  to  build  and  operate  the  road 
and  utilities.  Watered  stock  and  balloon  bonds 
get  no  consideration.  On  the  other  hand,  since 
the  commission  knows  the  costs,  it  knows  ex 
actly  the  point  below  which  rates  cannot  be 
reduced.  It  even  raises  rates  when  they  are 
below  the  cost,  including  reasonable  profit. 


360        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

The  people  are  benefited  because  they  are 
not  now  paying  profits  on  inflated  capital.  The 
investors  are  benefited  because  the  commission 
has  all  the  facts  needed  to  prevent  a  reduction 
of  rates  below  a  fair  profit  on  their  true  value. 
So  honestly,  capably,  and  scientifically  has  the 
work  of  our  commission  been  done  that  the 
railroads  and  other  utility  corporations  have 
accepted  their  reductions  without  any  contest 
at  all.  Our  law  makes  it  perfectly  easy  for  the 
railroads  to  seek  redress  in  the  courts  if  they 
feel  wronged  in  any  way.  Yet  it  is  significant 
that  there  has  never  been  an  appeal  taken  in 
any  railroad  rate  case  decided  by  the  Railroad 
Commission.  The  corporations  know  that  the 
Railroad  Commission  has  all  the  data  for  making 
rates  that  they  (the  railroads)  have,  and  that  it 
can  go  into  court  and  show  that  it  is  making 
rates  not  by  guess,  not  by  estimate,  but  by  the 
most  careful  calculation  based  upon  definite  in 
formation.  Thus  while  the  railroad  companies 
do  not  enjoy  having  their  rates  cut  down,  they 
are  not  over-eager  to  advertise  the  Wisconsin 
system  of  rate  making.  When  the  other  states 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        361 

of  the  country  and  the  federal  government  make 
rates  as  we  do  in  Wisconsin,  the  shippers  of  the 
country  will  be  saved  millions  of  dollars  every 
year  in  excessive  transportation  charges. 

In  Wisconsin  we  regulate  services  as  well 
as  rates.  When  the  services  of  a  railroad  are 
not  satisfactory  to  the  public,  complaint  can 
be  made  to  the  Railroad  Commission.  Under 
our  law  that  complaint  does  not  need  to  be  a 
formal  legal  document,  but  a  simple  statement 
of  grievance  by  letter  or  postal  card.  In  1906 
I  rode  over  the  branch  of  the  Chicago,  Mil 
waukee  and  St.  Paul  road  which  runs  from  Madi 
son  to  Prairie  du  Chien.  The  train  was  not  so 
very  crowded  when  I  got  on  two  or  three  sta 
tions  east  of  Prairie  du  Chien,  but  it  kept  filling 
up  and  pretty  soon  I  found  myself  standing  in 
the  aisle.  I  kept  being  crowded  back  and  back 
until  when  I  got  to  Madison  I  was  sitting  on  the 
tail  end  of  the  train,  and  I  was  thoroughly 
angry.  I  had  a  canvass  made  of  the  regular 
patrons  of  the  train  who  were  aboard,  to  find  out 
how  the  service  that  morning  compared  with 
the  average  service.  I  found  it  was  the  usual 


362        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

thing,  and  I  wrote  at  once  on  the  back  of  an 
envelope  which  I  took  from  my  pocket  some 
thing  like  this: 

"Mr.  Commissioner:  I  call  your  attention 
to  the  bad  service  on  the  Prairie  du  Chien  divi 
sion  of  the  Chicago,  Milwaukee  and  St.  Paul 
road.  It  is  not  adequately  equipped  either 
with  cars  or  trains.  Passenger  train  so-and-so 
crowded  to  the  platforms.  I  think  the  matter 
should  be  investigated  by  your  commission." 

I  think  inside  of  ten  days  there  was  a  new 
train  running  on  that  road.  The  travelling  men 
called  it  the  "Bob"  train  in  honor  of  me,  but  I 
am  sure  that  no  more  attention  was  paid  to  my 
K  complaint  than  would  have  been  paid  to  one 
from  any  other  source. 

The  complaint  is  taken  up  by  the  commission 
in  an  informal  way.  A  representative  of  the 
railroad  and  the  party  making  complaint  are  then 
brought  together,  quite  informally.  I  should 
say  hundreds  of  cases  of  that  sort  are  disposed  of 
and  adjusted  to  the  satisfaction  of  both  parties 
to  one  case  requiring  a  formal  presentation  and 
the  employment  of  counsel.  This  system  makes 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        363 

it  cheaper  for  the  railroads,  cheaper  for  the 
people,  and  it  is  a  speedy  way  to  get  justice  in  a 
lot  of  little  things.  Most  people  deal  with  rail 
roads  in  a  large  way  only  a  few  times  in  their 
lives.  But  they  are  brought  into  intimate 
contact  with  the  railroad  on  little  freight  ship 
ments,  or  with  relation  to  crossings  and  depots 
-  small  annoyances  which  often  cause  more 
bitterness  than  large  matters.  As  the  result  of 
the  easy  and  just  settlement  of  such  difficulties 
I  think  to-day  there  is  a  better  feeling  in  the 
state  toward  the  railroads  and  railroad  men  than 
ever  before  in  our  history. 

In  other  ways  our  progressive  legislation  has 
materially  benefited  all  the  people  of  the  state. 
For  example,  beginning  in  1903,  I  secured  in 
every  water-power  franchise  the  insertion  of  a 
provision  that  the  rates  charged  should  be 
regulated  by  arbitration.  Since  that  time  the 
water  powers  of  the  state  serving  as  public 
utilities  have  been  placed  under  the  control 
of  the  Railroad  Commission,  and  a  great  cor 
poration,  supervised  by  the  Railroad  Commis 
sion,  with  its  profits  limited  to  6  per  cent,  on 


364        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

actual  cost,  has  been  created  and  has  improved 
the  headwaters  of  the  Wisconsin  River  in  order 
to  secure  a  steady  flow  through  the  year.  Sev 
eral  enormous  power  dams  have  been  con 
structed,  and  through  these  means  the  state 
has  gone  far  toward  utilizing  its  1,000,000  avail 
able  horsepower,  while  protecting  the  state 
against  water-power  monopoly. 

Wisconsin  began  in  1905  to  build  up  a  state 
forest  reserve  on  the  headwaters  of  its  principal 
rivers.  It  now  ranks  next  to  New  York  and 
Pennsylvania  in  its  areas  of  forests  belonging 
to  the  state,  and  has  adopted  a  permanent  policy 
of  adding  annually  to  the  reserve. 

Wisconsin  has  also  taken  hold  of  the  insur 
ance  problem  with  vigor.  The  special  session 
of  the  legislature  which  I  called  in  1905  pro 
vided  for  a  committee  to  investigate  insurance 
corporations.  This  was  about  the  time  of  the 
Hughes  investigation  in  New  York,  and  the 
committee  appointed  pursuant  to  that  legis 
lation  rendered  a  very  signal  service  to  our 
state.  As  a  member  of  that  committee  H.  L. 
Ekern,  who  was  then  Speaker  of  the  Assembly 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        365 

-  a  legislator  of  real  creative  power  —  de 
veloped  a  very  remarkable  aptitude  for  the 
insurance  problem.  It  was  most  extraordinary. 
Ekern  is  a  Norwegian,  a  university  graduate,  a 
lawyer.  In  the  legislature  of  1907  he  appeared 
before  the  committee  having  charge  of  the 
insurance  legislation,  and  there  demonstrated 
his  ability  to  more  than  hold  his  own  against 
the  ablest  actuaries  and  lawyers  representing  the 
largest  insurance  companies  in  the  United  States. 
In  1910  he  was  elected  Insurance  Commis 
sioner  of  the  state  and  in  the  legislature  of  1911 
he  brought  about  a  complete  recodification  of 
our  insurance  laws.  He  has  indeed  practically 
laid  the  basis  for  a  system  of  state  insurance  - 
the  first,  I  think,  in  the  United  States. 

The  public  service  of  the  state  has  been 
democratized  by  a  civil  service  law  opening  it  . 
to  men  and  women  on  an  equal  footing  inde 
pendent  of  everything  excepting  qualification 
and  fitness  for  office.  I  think  the  passing  of  this 
law  was  the  only  case  of  the  kind  where  the 
employees  then  holding  office  were  not  blanketed 
into  the  service,  but  were  required  to  take  the 


366        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

regular  competitive  examinations  in  order  to 
retain  their  jobs.  The  law  has  worked  to  the 
great  advantage  of  the  service  and  to  the  general 
improvement  of  political  standards.  There  is 
no  longer  any  political  pull  in  Wisconsin. 

I  give  here,  also,  some  further  facts  to  show 
that  Wisconsin,  instead  of  being  retarded  by 
progressive  legislation,  is  advancing  more  rap 
idly  than  the  country  taken  as  a  whole. 

Since  1904,  when  we  recodified  our  whole 
system  for  the  examination  of  state  banks, 
there  has  not  been  a  single  failure  among  the 
573  state  banks  in  Wisconsin,  with  $27,000,000 
of  capital,  surplus  and  undivided  profits.  The 
only  bank  failures  in  the  state  have  been  those 
of  three  national  banks  through  embezzlement. 

During  the  years  1903  to  1911  the  capital, 
surplus  and  undivided  profits  of  all  state  and 
national  banks  in  Wisconsin  increased  72  per 
cent.,  whereas  for  the  United  States  they  in 
creased  only  48  per  cent.  Individual  deposits 
for  the  same  years  in  Wisconsin  banks  increased 
82  per  cent.,  while  in  the  United  States  as  a 
whole  they  increased  but  74  per  cent. 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        367 

The  clearing-house  exchanges  for  Milwaukee 
increased  117.5  per  cent,  from  1900  to  1910, 
whereas  for  the  United  States  the  increase  was 
106  per  cent.  Milwaukee's  increase  wras  greater 
than  Chicago's. 

Judged  by  commercial  failures,  Wisconsin 
has  prospered  better  in  proportion  than  the 
country.  The  total  liabilities  in  commercial 
failures  for  the  entire  United  States  in  the  four 
years  1906  to  1909  increased  33  per  cent,  over 
the  total  amount  for  the  preceding  four  years 
1902  to  1905.  But  the  liabilities  in  Wisconsin 
for  the  same  years  fell  off  5.3  per  cent.  In  other 
words,  comparing  the  four  years  that  followed 
the  progressive  victory  of  1905  with  the  four 
years  that  preceded  it,  the  business  failures  in 
Wisconsin  fell  off  one  twentieth,  but  for  the 
whole  United  States  they  increased  one  third. 

These  are  a  few  of  the  conclusive  proofs  that 
progressive  legislation  in  Wisconsin  has  not 
been  destructive,  as  its  enemies  predicted. 
Instead  of  driving  capital  out  of  the  state  it 
has  attracted  capital  more  than  other  states. 
It  has  made  investments  safe  for  all,  instead  of 


368        PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT 

speculative  for  a  few.  It  has  been  conserv 
ative  and  constructive  as  well  as  progressive. 
Only  one  of  the  progressive  laws  —  a  law  passed 
in  1911,  declaring  flowing  w^ater  public  property 
-  has  been  overturned  by  the  supreme  court 
of  the  state,  and  not  one  has  been  carried  into 
the  federal  courts. 

No  account  of  the  long  and  successful  struggle 
in  Wisconsin  would  be  fair  and  complete  that 
did  not  record  the  splendid  services  of  the  men 
who  led  the  fight  for  progressive  principles. 
I  regret  that  I  cannot  here  give  to  each  the 
individual  recognition  that  is  merited.  That 
must  wait  for  a  more  detailed  history  of  the 
Wisconsin  movement.  It  was  a  day-and-night 
service  with  them;  they  left  their  offices  and 
business  interests  and  devoted  years  to  the  great 
constructive  work  which  has  made  Wisconsin 
the  safest  guide  in  dealing  with  the  political, 
economic  and  social  problems  of  our  time. 

This  closes  the  account  of  my  services  in 
Wisconsin  —  a  time  full  of  struggle,  and  yet  a 
time  that  I  like  to  look  back  upon.  It  has  been 
a  fight  supremely  worth  making,  and  I  want  it 


PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNMENT        369 

to  be  judged,  as  it  will  be  ultimately,  by  results 
actually  attained.  If  it  can  be  shown  that  Wis 
consin  is  a  happier  and  better  state  to  live  in, 
that  its  institutions  are  more  democratic,  that 
the  opportunities  of  all  its  people  are  more  equal, 
that  social  justice  more  nearly  prevails,  that 
human  life  is  safer  and  sweeter  —  then  I  shall 
rest  content  in  the  feeling  that  the  Progressive 
movement  has  been  successful.  And  I  believe 
all  these  things  can  really  be  shown,  and  that 
there  is  no  reason  now  why  the  movement  should 
not  expand  until  it  covers  the  entire  nation. 
While  much  has  been  accomplished,  there  is 
still  a  world  of  problems  yet  to  be  solved;  we 
have  just  begun;  there  is  hard  fighting,  and  a 
chance  for  the  highest  patriotism,  still  ahead 
of  us.  The  fundamental  problem  as  to  which 
shall  rule,  men  or  property,  is  still  unsettled; 
it  will  require  the  highest  qualities  of  heroism, 
the  profoundest  devotion  to  duty  in  this  and  in 
the  coming .  generation,  to  reconstruct  our  in 
stitutions  to  meet  the  requirements  of  a  new 
age.  May  such  brave  and  true  leaders  de 
velop  that  the  people  will  not  be  led  astray. 


CHAPTER  IX 

ALONE    IN    THE    SENATE:    EXPERIENCES    WITH 
ROOSEVELT  I   RAILROAD  RATE  LEGISLATION 

I    WAS  elected  to  the  United  States  Senate  on 
January  25,  1905,  four  weeks  after  the  leg 
islature  met.     At  first  I  was  very  doubtful 
whether  I  ought  to  resign  the  governorship  and 
go  to  Washington.     Much  work  still  remained 
to  be  done  in  Wisconsin,  and  I  felt  that  I  could 
not    accept    until    all    the    pledges    which  we 
had  made  to  the  people  were  redeemed  in  letter 
and  spirit. 

For  this  reason  I  determined  not  to  resign  as 
governor  until  the  legislation  we  had  under 
way  was  not  only  passed  but  actually  in  opera 
tion.  WTiile  I  recognized  that  the  work  of 
democracy  is  never  finished,  I  resolved  for  my 
self  that  I  would  net  leave  Wisconsin  until  our 
legislation  had  been  enacted  and  its  efficiency 

370 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  371 

proven.  In  the  following  spring  we  tested  our 
new  direct  primary  law  at  the  polls,  and  we 
tried  out  the  railroad  taxation  law  before  the 
circuit  court. 

Having  thus  discovered  the  weaknesses  in 
our  program  of  legislation,  I  called  a  special 
session  of  the  legislature  to  meet  in  December, 
1905,  in  order  to  correct  the  defects  and  fully  to 
complete  our  work.  When  the  session  ad 
journed,  eleven  months  after  my  election  to  the 
Senate,  I  resigned  as  governor  of  Wisconsin 
and  prepared  to  go  on  to  Washington. 

In  making  this  final  decision  I  was  not  a  little 
influenced  by  the  urgent  letters  and  interviews 
with  people  of  prominence  outside  of  Wiscon 
sin.  During  that  summer  I  lectured  in  some 
twenty -five  different  states  and  I  never  went 
anywhere  that  leading  Progressives  did  not 
urge  me  to  go  to  Washington  and  carry  forward 
the  fight  on  the  wider  national  platform.  I 
remember  meeting  Colonel  Bryan  once  or  twice 
during  the  summer. 

"La  Follette,"  he  said,  "I  hear  you  are  not 
going  to  the  Senate.  I  do  hope  that  is  not  true. 


372  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

You  must  go  and  make  the  fight  there  in  the 
public  interest." 

I  found  not  a  little  amusement  in  the  treat 
ment  by  the  press  of  the  country  of  my  decision 
to  accept  the  senatorship.  Most  of  the  impor 
tant  papers  prophesied  an  early  suppression  of 
all  my  reform  notions.  It  was  suggested  that 
a  few  months  in  the  Senate  refrigerator,  to  which 
I  would  be  promptly  consigned,  would  consider 
ably  cool  my  ardor  and  give  me  time  for  reflec 
tion  and  the  adoption  of  saner,  more  rational 
views  of  business  and  government.  I  remember 
one  of  the  cartoons  of  the  time  pictured  my  ap 
proach  to  the  Senate  end  of  the  Capitol  ap 
parently  all  unconscious  of  the  fact  that  every 
window  was  open  and  that  the  Senate  leaders 
were  leaning  halfway  out,  each  holding  aloft  a 
mallet  with  which  to  extend  a  senatorial  wel 
come. 

On  the  evening  of  January  3,  1906,  Mrs.  La 
Toilette  and  I  arrived  in  Washington.  Senator 
Chandler  of  New  Hampshire,  who  had  been  most 
friendly,  came  to  the  Raleigh  Hotel  to  call  upon 
us,  and  I  learned  from  him  the  proper  methods 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  373 

of  procedure  in  presenting  my  credentials.  I 
had  anticipated  some  departure  from  precedents 
owing  to  the  fact  that  the  senior  Senator  from 
Wisconsin,  John  C.  Spooner,  and  I  had  long  been 
upon  opposite  sides  in  the  Wisconsin  fight,  and 
while  it  had  not  been  personal  in  its  character, 
the  struggle  had  resulted  in  a  very  wide  division. 
I  did  not  know  how  he  might  feel  about  con 
forming  to  the  usual  custom  of  the  Senate  in 
presenting  my  credentials. 

The  next  day  at  twelve  o'clock  I  went  to  call 
on  the  Vice-President,  Mr.  Fairbanks,  in  his 
official  capacity  as  President  of  the  Senate;  and 
upon  returning  to  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  Sen 
ator  Spooner  met  me  and  introduced  me  to  a 
number  of  the  Senators  who  were  coming  in  to 
take  their  places.  There  were  some  dozen  or 
fifteen  men  in  the  Senate  whom  I  knew  as 
members  of  the  House  —  Burrows,  Hopkins, 
Rayner,  and  others.  Spooner  invited  me  to  sit 
next  to  him.  Mrs.  La  Follette  and  other  friends- 
were  in  the  gallery.  After  the  divine  blessing 
had  been  invoked  Senator  Spooner  arose  and 
presented  my  credentials.  The  Senator  offered 


374  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

his  arm,  I  took  it,  and  we  marched  down  to  the 
Vice-President's  desk,  where  the  oath  of  office 
was  administered.  I  was  then  escorted  to  my 
desk  in  what  was  called  the  Cherokee  Strip  —  a 
group  of  seats  on  the  Democratic  side  of  the 
house  which  was  then  occupied  by  Republicans, 
there  being  at  that  time  61  Republicans  in  the 
Senate  and  only  31  Democrats.  Thus  it  came 
about  that  at  12.30  o'clock  on  the  4th  day  of 
January,  1906,  I  found  myself  occupying  a  seat 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  Democratic  side  of  the 
Senate  as  a  member  of  the  59th  Congress. 

After  my  election  to  the  Senate  I  had  received 
the  usual  form  letter  from  Senator  Hale,  chair 
man  of  the  Committee  on  Committees,  asking 
me  to  state  my  preference  as  to  committee 
assignments.  In  my  reply  I  expressed  but 
one  preference  —  the  Committee  on  Interstate 
Commerce.  I  suggested  that  my  interest  in 
the  subject  of  transportation,  to  which  I  had 
given  some  years  of  study  and  investigation, 
led  me  to  believe  that  I  could  render  better 
service  upon  that  committee  than  upon  any 
other.  I  had  never  received  any  response  to  that 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  375 

letter,  and  I  was  naturally  interested  to  know 
what  my  assignments  were.  I  need  scarcely 
say  that  I  was  not  appointed  to  the  Committee 
on  Interstate  Commerce.  Of  all  my  assign 
ments  the  Committee  on  Indian  Affairs  was 
altogether  the  best;  though  I  should  not  over 
look  the  bestowal  upon  me  of  a  chairmanship 
which  carried  with  it  a  committee  room,  a  clerk, 
and  a  messenger.  The  title  of  this  committee 
impressed  me  considerably.  It  was  the  "Com 
mittee  to  Investigate  the  Condition  of  the 
Potomac  River  Front.  (Select.) "  I  had  im 
mediate  visions  of  cleaning  up  the  whole  Poto 
mac  River  front  until  I  found  that  in  all  its 
history  the  committee  had  never  had  a  bill 
referred  to  it  for  consideration,  and  had  never 
held  a  meeting.  My  committee  room  was 
reached  by  going  down  into  the  sub-cellar  of  the 
capitol,  along  a  dark  winding  passage  lighted 
by  dim  skylights  which  leaked  badly,  to  a  room 
carved  out  of  the  terrace  on  the  west  side  of 
the  Capitol. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  emphasize  the  very 
great  importance  of  committee    appointments 


376  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

in  the  Senate.  They  are  the  gateways  of  legis 
lation.  A  powerful  committee  in  secret  session 
has  almost  autocratic  power  in  deciding  what 
laws  shall  or  shall  not  be  passed:  and  it  is  in  the 
committees  that  the  great  financial  interests  of 
the  country  have  found  their  securest  entrench 
ment.  Of  first  importance  is  the  great  Finance 
Committee,  which  has  charge  of  all  bills  affect 
ing  the  tariff,  currency  and  banking.  Other 
very  powerful  committees  are  Interstate  Com 
merce,  with  its  control  of  bills  relating  to  rail 
roads,  trusts  and  combinations,  and  the  Com 
mittees  on  Rules,  on  Appropriations,  on  Foreign 
Relations,  and  on  the  Judiciary. 

I  decided  to  make  the  best  of  my  committee 
appointments.  I  knew,  of  course,  what  they 
thought  when  they  placed  me  on  at  least  three 
of  them:  Claims,  Indian  Affairs  and  Pensions 

-  "We will  give  the  gentleman  so  much  routine 
work  to  do  that  he  will  not  trouble  us  at  all" 

-  for  these  committees,  more  than  almost  any 
others,  are  occupied  by  a  multiplicity  of  un 
important    legislation.     But    while    I    resolved 
to  do  my  duty,  I  determined  not  to  permit  my 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  377 

attention  to  be  diverted  from  the  really  great 
and  important  questions  of  the  day.  Upon  one 
of  the  committees,  indeed,  that  of  Indian  Affairs, 
I  found  immediately  most  congenial  service.  My 
interest  in  the  Indians,  awakened  during  my 
service  in  the  House  of  Representatives  fifteen 
years  before,  had  always  been  active. 

The  most  important  bill  under  consideration 
by  that  committee  was  the  bill  for  the  settle 
ment  of  the  affairs  of  the  Five  Civilized  Tribes 
in  the  Indian  Territory,  one  of  the  most  im 
portant  provisions  of  which  related  to  the 
segregated  coal  lands  of  the  Choctaw  and 
Chickasaw  Indians.  The  bill,  as  passed  by  the 
House,  provided  for  a  continuation  and  exten 
sion  of  the  policy  of  leasing  the  coal  lands  to 
private  mining  companies.  The  Senate  com 
mittee  proposed  to  amend  this  provision  of  the 
House  bill  and  provide  for  the  sale  of  the  lands. 
It  was  a  new  question  for  me,  but  I  went  to  see 
the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  and  got  his  views 
upon  the  subject.  I  then  called  upon  the 
Director  of  the  Geological  Survey,  and  learned 
that  bituminous  coal  of  a  very  superior  quality 


378  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

had  been  located  upon  413,000  acres  of  this  land. 
I  also  discovered  that  leases  covering  about 
112,000  acres  in  area,  while  taken  in  the  name  of 
private  coal-mining  companies,  were  really  con 
trolled  by  the  railroads  of  the  territory.  I  found 
that  there  was  little  or  no  competition  in  prices, 
and  that  the  transportation  rates  for  shipments 
from  the  mines  to  the  consumers  were  enor 
mously  high. 

I  therefore  opposed  in  committee  the  sale  of 
these  coal  lands.  Being  voted  down  on  that 
proposition,  I  proposed  such  amendments  as 
seemed  to  me  to  better  the  measure,  such,  for 
instance,  as  limiting  the  amount  of  coal  land 
which  could  be  acquired  by  any  one  company; 
providing  for  a  condition  in  the  deeds  making 
the  lands  revert  to  the  United  States  in  trust 
for  the  Indians  when  the  land  went  to  any  rail 
road  corporation  or  the  officers  or  directors  of 
any  railroad  corporation. 

I  was,  of  course,  voted  down  overwhelmingly 
in  the  committee  on  all  of  these  propositions; 
indeed,  as  I  now  remember  it,  my  own  was  the 
only  vote  which  I  was  able  to  get  for  any  of 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  379 

them.  I  reserved  the  right  to  oppose  the  com 
mittee  as  to  these  provisions  in  any  and  all 
respects  when  the  bill  should  be  brought  up  on 
the  floor  of  the  Senate.  The  committee  smiled 
a  broad  smile.  I  was  regarded  at  that  time,  I 
am  sure,  by  every  man  upon  that  committee  as 
a  crank,  a  disturber  of  peace  and  prosperity.  I 
knew  what  was  back  of  that  smile.  The  mem 
bers  of  the  committee  were  thinking  what  the 
Senate  would  do  to  me  when  I  attempted  to 
oppose  the  action  of  the  committee  in  selling 
these  coal  lands. 

Well,  when  the  bill  came  before  the  Senate,  I 
offered  amendments  which  led  to  a  two  days' 
discussion.  Though  they  were  voted  down,  the 
whole  subject  was  so  effectively  aired  in  the 
newspapers  as  a  scheme  of  the  railroads  and 
other  special  interests  connected  with  them  to 
get  hold  of  the  Indian  coal  lands,  that  the  plan 
to  sell  the  coal  had  to  be  abandoned. 

But  from  that  day  to  this  the  railroads  and 
other  important  interests  have  never  ceased  their 
efforts  to  get  control  of  these  valuable  deposits. 

At  every  session  of  Congress,  from  that  ses- 


380  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

sion  of  1906  down  to  the  last  day  of  the  extra 
session  of  1911,  the  protection  of  the  interests  of 
the  Indians  and  of  the  public  generally  in  that 
coal  field  has  required  constant  vigilance.  Many 
lobbies  have  been  organized;  measures  have 
been  introduced  in  one  form  and  another  at 
every  session  —  independent  bills,  riders  on  ap 
propriation  bills,  jokers  in  conference  reports 
have  concealed  in  some  form  an  attempt  to 
exploit  these  coal  lands  and  the  people  depend 
ent  upon  them  for  fuel  supply. 

This  first  fight  in  the  Senate  proved  to  be  an 
important  one.  It  was  the  beginning  of  the 
battle  for  conservation  of  coal  lands  belonging 
to  the  people.  I  am  not  aware  that  President 
Roosevelt  had  ever,  prior  to  this  time,  given 
expression  to  any  views  in  regard  to  a  policy 
upon  this  subject,  but  as  an  evidence  of  the 
quickness  with  which  his  mind  grasps  an  impor 
tant  subject,  I  mention  my  first  call  upon  him 
after  the  debate  in  the  Senate.  I  do  not  now 
remember  the  purpose  of  my  visit;  I  do  remem 
ber  his  greeting: 

"Senator  La  Follette,  by  Jove!  you  struck  a 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  381 

mighty  good  lead  on  that  coal  matter  in  Indian 
Territory.  I  think  that  is  a  very  important 
subject." 

And  I  said  to  him:  "Yes,  Mr.  President,  its 
importance  will  develop.  I  am  going  to  work 
out  a  bill  providing  that  the  government  shall 
take  over  that  coal  and  save  it  from  being  ex 
ploited  by  monopoly  control." 

"  Bully !     It  is  a  bully  good  thing ! " 

"Mr.  President,"  I  said,  "I  think  it  would 
also  be  a  good  thing  applied  to  all  the  coal  fields 
of  the  government,  and  I  want  to  come  and  talk 
to  you  about  that  when  you  haven't  so  many  in 
waiting  to  see  you." 

He  said,  "I  would  be  very  much  interested. 
I  wish  you  would  come." 

I  did  go  to  have  a  talk  with  him  and  I  found 
him  not  only  open-minded  upon  the  subject, 
but  ready  to  assent  to  the  importance  of  some 
action  in  that  direction.  I  then  suggested  to 
him  the  withdrawal  from  sale  and  entry  of  all 
coal,  asphalt,  and  oil  lands  by  executive  order, 
but  he  at  once  raised  the  question  of  the  power 
of  the  President  to  act  without  Congressional 


382  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

authority.  I  argued  that  the  President  had 
such  authority,  but  he  said  that  he  would  get 
Attorney-General  Moody's  opinion  on  it.  When 
I  saw  him  afterward  he  said  that  Moody 's 
opinion  left  the  matter  still  in  doubt.  I  then 
told  him  that  I  would  introduce  a  joint  resolu 
tion  in  the  Senate  clothing  him  with  power  to 
withdraw  the  public  lands  from  entry. 

Accordingly,  on  the  20th  of  June,  I  offered 
such  a  joint  resolution  authorizing  the  President 
"  to  withdraw  from  entry  and  sale  all  public  lands 
known  to  be  underlaid  with  coal,  lignite,  or  oil 
and  all  such  lands  which,  in  the  judgment  of  the 
Director  of  the  Geological  Survey,  contain  depos 
its  of  coal,  lignite,  or  oil,  and  that  all  such  lands 
be  withheld  from  entry  or  sale  until  such  time 
as  Congress  shall  determine  otherwise." 

I  was  not  able,  however,  to  secure  action  on 
the  resolution  in  the  Senate. 

I  next  saw  President  Roosevelt  on  the  30th 
of  June  a  few  hours  prior  to  the  adjournment 
of  Congress.  He  was  then  in  the  President's 
room  at  the  capitol.  I  told  him  it  had  been 
impossible  to  get  action  upon  the  joint  resolu- 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  383 

tion  authorizing  him  to  withdraw  the  coal  lands 
from  sale  and  entry,  at  the  same  time  saying 
that  I  did  not  think  that  such  action  was  neces 
sary  on  the  part  of  Congress. 

"Well,"  he  said  in  his  characteristic  and 
energetic  way,  "Moody  thinks  there  is  some 
doubt  about  it,  but  I'll  resolve  that  doubt  in 
favor  of  the  public,  and  after  Congress  adjourns 
I'll  withdraw  all  government  lands  known  to 
contain  coal  deposits." 

I  told  him  I  believed  that  such  action  on  his 
part  would  have  the  backing  of  all  the  people 
of  the  country,  and  that  I  proposed  to  give  such 
time  as  I  could  during  the  summer  to  a  study 
of  the  subject  with  a  view  to  introducing  a  com 
prehensive  bill  not  only  dealing  with  the  coal 
lands  belonging  to  the  Indians  but*  with  all  the 
coal  lands  belonging  to  the  general  government. 

He  said,  "Good.  You  go  ahead,  get  your  bill 
ready,  and  I  will  make  it  the  leading  subject  in 
my  message  to  Congress  in  December.  Come 
and  see  me  as  soon  as  you  return." 

Not  long  after  Congress  adjourned,  while  on 
the  road  in  the  middle  west  filling  lecture  en- 


384  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

gagements,  I  saw  a  Washington  dispatch  an 
nouncing  the  withdrawal  by  the  President  of 
many  millions  of  acres  of  government  coal  lands, 
and  that  afternoon,  in  an  address  on  the  dangers 
threatening  representative  government,  I  told 
the  story  of  the  coal  lands  and  of  the  President's 
keen  interest  in  the  whole  subject. 

On  my  return  to  Washington  in  December, 
1906,  I  called  promptly  upon  the  President. 
Almost  his  first  words  were : 

"Senator  La  Follette,  I  have  got  it  in  the  mes 
sage!" 

I  told  him  I  had  made  a  first  draft  of  my  bill, 
but  that  I  needed  some  further  assistance  in 
perfecting  it.  Upon  my  request  he  gave  me  a 
card  to  Attorney-General  Moody,  and  one  of  the 
best  men  in  the  Department  of  Justice  was 
assigned  to  help  me.  Many  weeks  were  spent 
in  mastering  all  the  literature  and  legislation 
upon  this  question  in  Great  Britain,  Germany 
and  New  Zealand,  and  we  then  prepared  a  broad 
conservation  measure.  In  view  of  the  fact  that 
the  bill  was  in  a  large  degree  the  work  of  the 
able  assistant  assigned  by  the  Attorney-  General 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  385 

I  may  be  pardoned  for  saying  that  it  is  the  one 
bill  that  has  been  put  before  Congress  that  deals 
with  the  whole  subject  in  a  comprehensive  way. 

Its  essential  provisions  are  that  all  coal  lands 
shall  be  reserved  by  the  general  government  and 
shall  not  be  sold,  but  shall  be  operated  under 
license.  By  the  passage  of  such  a  measure  the 
government  would  forever  control  its  coal 
reserves. 

Before  I  introduced  the  bill,  however,  I  called 
at  the  executive  office  and  went  over  it  sec 
tion  by  section  with  the  President.  At 
every  important  point  Mr.  Roosevelt  would 
smite  the  table  and  declare  his  approval  with 
an  emphatic: 

"Admirable,  admirable!  that  does  the  busi 
ness!" 

When  we  had  finished  with  the  bill,  he  said : 

"How  soon  will  you  introduce  it?" 

"To-morrow,"  I  answered. 

He  said,  "You  may  announce,  if  you  desire, 
that  it  is  an  administration  measure." 

I  was  delighted,  and  expressed  my  apprecia 
tion  that  this  important  measure  could 


I/ 


386  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

have  the  active  support  of  the  administration. 
I  introduced  the  bill,  and  gave  to  the  press  a 
brief  statement  of  its  provisions.  Within  three 
days  I  was  surprised  to  receive  a  note  from  the 
President  advising  me  that  he  had  conferred 
with  friends  about  the  coal  bill  which  I  had 
introduced,  and  found  that  it  would  be  impos 
sible  to  get  support  for  any  such  measure;  that 
its  provisions  were  regarded  as  too  drastic,  and 
that  in  order  to  get  "something  through"  it 
would  be  necessary  to  agree  upon  a  less  com 
prehensive  plan.  He  said  it  had  been  suggested 
to  him  that  Senator  Nelson  had  introduced  a 
bill  shortly  before  which  would  be  acceptable 
to  everybody.  The  joint  resolution  which  I  had 
introduced  on  the  20th  of  June,  1906,  with  its 
preamble  reciting  the  conditions  that  existed, 
followed  by  the  President's  withdrawal  of  the 
coal  lands,  had  served  as  a  warning  that  action 
in  some  form,  thoroughgoing  or  otherwise,  was  , 
likely  to  be  undertaken,  and  Senator  Nelson 
of  Minnesota  had  on  the  3rd  day  of  Janu 
ary,  1907,  introduced  a  bill  upon  the  subject. 
I  replied  to  President  Roosevelt's  note  by 


AL@NE  IN  THE  SENATE  387 

letter,  as  I  wished  to  place  before  him  a  care 
ful  analysis  of  the  Nelson  bill  to  the  end  that 
he  might  see  that  legislation  of  that  char 
acter  would  be  not  only  not  worth  while,  but 
would,  if  enacted,  serve  only  to  bring  govern 
ment  control  and  leasing  into  actual  disrepute, 
and  end,  as  do  all  compromises  with  principle, 
in  defeating  the  very  object  in  view.  In  my 
letter  to  the  President  I  assured  him  that  no 
pride  of  authorship  would  impel  me  to  insist  upon 
my  bill;  that  in  order  to  secure  legislation  upon 
this  important  subject  I  stood  ready  to  support 
any  bill,  provided  it  embodied  the  principles 
essential  to  make  this  new  legislation  really 
effective.  In  reply,  the  President  did  not  at 
tempt  to  answer  the  objections  which  I  presented 
to  the  Nelson  bill,  but  said  substantially  that  if 
those  who  were  supporting  the  new  policy  were 
not  willing  to  agree  upon  "  something  which  could 
be  passed,"  he  would  wash  his  hands  of  the  whole 
matter  and  would  cancel  his  withdrawal  of  the 
lands  and  open  them  again  to  sale  and  entry. 

I  state  the  facts  here  just  as  they  transpired, 
because  they  illustrate  the  difference  in  methods 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

v/ 

which  sometimes  rendered  it  impossible  for 
President  Roosevelt  and  myself  to  cooperate 
on  important  legislation.  He  acted  upon  the 

maxim  that  half  a  loaf  is  better  than  no  bread. 

r 

1  I  believe  that  half  a  loaf  is  fatal  whenever  it  is 
accepted  at  the  sacrifice  of  the  basic  principle 
sought  to  be  attained.  Half  a  loaf,  as  a  rule, 
dulls  the  appetite,  and  destroys  the  keenness  of 
interest  in  attaining  the  full  loaf.  A  halfway 
measure  never  fairly  tests  the  principle  and  may 
utterly  discredit  it.  It  is  certain  to  weaken, 
disappoint,  and  dissipate  public  interest.  Con 
cession  and  compromise  are  almost  always  ne 
cessary  in  legislation,  but  they  call  for  the  most 
thorough  and  complete  mastery  of  the  principles 
involved,  in  order  to  fix  the  limit  beyond  which 

\not  one  hair's  breadth  can  be  yielded. 

Roosevelt  is  the  keenest  and  ablest  living 
interpreter  of  what  I  would  call  the  superficial 
public  sentiment  of  a  given  time  and  he  is 
spontaneous  in  his  response  to  it;  but  he  does 
not  distinguish  between  that  which  is  a  mere 
surface  indication  of  a  sentiment  and  the 
building  up  by  a  long  process  of  education  of  a 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  389 

public  opiit'on  which  is  as  deep-rooted  as  life. 
Had  Roosevelt,  for  example,  when  he  came  to 
consider  railroad  rate  regulation,  estimated  cor 
rectly  the  value  of  the  public  opinion  that  had 
been  created  upon  that  subject  through  a  space 
of  nine  years,  he  would  have  known  to  a  cer 
tainty  that  it  lay  in  his  power  to  secure  legis 
lation  which  should  effectually  control  the  great 
transportation  companies  of  the  country.  But 
either  through  a  desire  to  get  immediate  results, 
or  through  a  misunderstanding  of  the  really 
profound  depth  of  that  public  sentiment,  he 
chose  to  get  what  little  he  could  then,  rather 
than  to  take  a  temporary  defeat  and  go  on 
fighting  at  the  succeeding  session  of  Con 
gress  for  legislation  that  would  be  fundamentally 
sound. 

To  get  back  to  the  coal  matter:  I  knew 
instinctively  what  had  taken  place  immediately 
after  the  introduction  of  my  bill.  Representa 
tives  of  the  railroads  and  of  the  corporations 
both  inside  and  outside  of  Congress  had  prob 
ably  swarmed  to  the  White  House,  denounced 
the  bill,  denounced  me,  and  told  the  President 


390  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE, 

that  the  plan  I  had  offered  was  socialistic  and 
that  the  committee  would  not  tolerate  it. 

Well,  after  the  President  decided  he  could  not 
support  the  bill  which  I  had  introduced  it  had 
no  chance  of  passing  the  Committee  on  Public 
Lands.  And  no  other  measure  proposed  received 
the  support  of  the  people  of  the  country  who 
were  in  favor  of  genuine  conservation.  That 
ended,  for  the  time  being,  any  chance  of  legis 
lation  on  that  subject.  But  I  have  presented 
the  same  bill  at  every  session  of  Congress  since 
1907  and  it  is  now  before  the  Committee  on 
Public  Lands.  I  am  very  hopeful  that  public 
sentiment  and  the  changes  that  are  gradually 
taking  place  in  the  personnel  of  the  committee 
will  soon  make  it  possible  to  secure  favorable 
action.  I  am  glad  to  see,  indeed,  that  the  Secre 
tary  of  the  Interior  has  used  this  bill  as  well  as 
that  which  I  introduced  to  provide  for  the  con 
trol  of  the  Indian  coal  land  of  Oklahoma  as  a 
basis  for  his  plan  for  the  control  of  coal  and 
other  mineral  resources  in  Alaska. 

The  simple  scheme  of  dominating  the  com 
mittees  in  the  Senate  and  the  House,  as  exempli- 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  391 

fied  in  the  case  of  these  coal  land  bills,  is  the 
familiar  procedure  of  those  private  interests 
both  inside  and  outside  of  Congress  which  seek 
to  direct  national  legislation.  Any  attempt 
to  bring  about  progressive  reforms  is  met  by 
this  entrenched  opposition.  For  example,  the 
Committee  on  Naval  Affairs  will  be  found  com 
posed  almost  entirely  of  members  representing 
states  or  districts  within  which  have  been  built 
up,  often  wrongfully,  great  land  naval  estab 
lishments,  harbors,  docks  and  the  like.  I  ven 
ture  to  say  that  an  expert,  unbiased  naval  board 
so  chosen  as  to  represent  the  highest  authority 
of  our  country  on  all  matters  pertaining  to  our 
navy  would  close  many  if  not  most  of  the  prin 
cipal  naval  yards  and  docks  and  never  permit 
the  expenditure  of  another  dollar  upon  them. 
Every  experienced  naval  officer  will  tell  you  that 
owing  to  channel  and  currents  every  large  battle 
ship  docks  at  Portsmouth  at  the  risk  of  serious 
injury  or  total  loss,  and  yet  Hale  of  Maine  and 
Gallinger  of  New  Hampshire  were  for  years 
important  members  of  the  Committee  on  Naval 
Affairs,  and  Portsmouth  was  maintained.  The 


392  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

same  is  in  a  measure  true  of  the  Mare  Island 
yard  at  San  Francisco,  but  Senator  Perkins  of 
California  is  now  chairman  of  the  Committee 
on  Naval  Affairs.  Every  principle  of  naval 
warfare  requires  that  this  government  should 
have  one  of  its  most  important  stations  at 
Guantanamo,  Cuba.  But  we  have  no  Senator 
from  Guantanamo,  and  so  we  have  no  harbor 
there. 

Now,  I  had  grown  tired  of  sitting  in  the  Senate 
and  seeing  appropriation  bills  carrying  hundreds 
of  millions  of  dollars  brought  in,  not  reasonably 
early  in  the  session,  but  held  back,  held  back, 
until  near  its  close.  Such  delay  served  two  pur 
poses:  The  appropriation  bill  having  the  right 
of  way  under  the  rules  could  be  used  to  kill  off 
any  measure  that  the  interests  did  not  want 
passed.  Furthermore,  it  could  be  urged  that 
there  was  no  time  for  full  debate.  One  after 
noon,  therefore,  when  Mr.  Hale  arose  and 
presented  the  Naval  Appropriation  bill,  stating 
that  he  hoped  the  first  reading  of  the  bill  would 
be  dispensed  with,  I  said  that  I  had  had  no 
opportunity  to  see  what  was  in  the  bill;  that  I 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  393 

thought  the  time  had  come  when  the  Senate 
should  stop  such  proceedings;  that  my  remarks 
were  not  intended  as  an  affront  to  the  committee, 
but  that  each  of  us  had  his  personal  responsi 
bility  to  his  state  and  to  the  country,  and  that 
the  organization  of  the  Senate  contemplated 
that  legislation  should  not  be  enacted  by  the 
fifteen  or  seventeen  men  who  constituted  the 
committee,  about  whose  selection  the  Senate 
itself  had  had  very  little  to  say.  At  once  Mr. 
Hale  started  in  to  rebuke  me.  I  told  him  that  I 
was  not  accountable  to  him  for  the  course  that  I 
was  taking;  that  I  stood  ready  to  assume  all 
the  responsibility  for  any  loss  of  time  to  the 
country  on  this  important  legislation;  that  ap 
propriation  bills,  it  seemed  to  me,  should  be 
reported  early  enough  so  that  members  of  the 
Senate  could  have  a  few  days  at  least  in  which 
to  investigate  them,  and  I  asked  that  he  defer 
pressing  the  bill  for  a  day  or  two.  But  Hale 
made  no  response  and  the  clerk  started  in  to 
read  the  bill. 

I  had  not  studied  the  Naval  Appropriation 
bill    at    all,    but    I   began   to    send  for   docu- 


394  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

ments,  which  were  piled  up  on  my  desk,  and  I 
determined  to  speak  on  the  bill  until  adjourn 
ment  for  the  day  and  thus  gain  time  to  study  it. 
Hale  saw  that  I  was  quite  determined  to  prevent 
the  passage  of  the  bill  that  afternoon  and  so  he 
rose  and  said  that  he  wanted  to  be  reasonable 
about  these  things,  and  the  bill  went  over  finally 
until  the  following  Monday. 

I  went  home  that  night  and  immediately 
began  getting  telephone  calls  from  naval  officers 
here  in  Washington,  who  said  they  were  grati 
fied  to  see  that  there  was  to  be  some  discussion 
of  the  bill;  that  there  were  many  things  about 
it  that  were  bad;  that  we  were  making  expendi 
tures  wastefully;  that  they  had  pride  in  the 
navy  and  that  they  wanted  to  see  a  navy  built 
up  for  the  ocean,  and  not  for  the  land.  I 
answered  that  I  would  be  glad  to  have  them 
meet  me  and  certain  of  my  associates  who  would 
be  selected  with  the  greatest  care,  and  who 
would  protect  them  absolutely.  Then  I  called 
in  Cummins,  Borah  and  Dixon.  I  called  Dixon 
because  he  had  come  to  me  after  my  tilt  with 
Hale  and  expressed  sympathy  with  the  course 


V7 
ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  395 

I  had  taken.     This  was  the  first  gathering  of 


the  group  of  sOj:callejJProgressi vga-in  the  Senate 
for  concerted  action  on  legislation.  We  spent 
the  entire  Sunday  on  it,  assisted  by  a  number 
of  naval  officers,  and  threshed  out  the  whole  bill. 
When  we  had  determined  on  the  items  in  the 
bill  that  should  be  opposed,  we  shared  them 
among  us  and  each  one  went  to  work. 

In  the  course  of  the  debate  on  the  Naval 
Appropriation  bill  which  followed,  the  Senate 
bosses  for  the  first  time  were  vigorously  attacked 
for  the  way  they  made  up  the  committees.  I 
contended  that  members  from  states  where  ap 
propriations  were  to  be  expended  ought  not  to 
be  on  committees  which  controlled  those  ex 
penditures.  I  said  that  no  one  would  think  of 
permitting  a  jury  to  sit  in  any  case  where  that 
jury  was  directly  or  indirectly  interested  in  the 
result  of  the  verdict.  And  that  it  was  against 
human  nature  that  the  men  on  the  committee 
would  not  give  preference  to  the  yards  and  docks 
in  their  own  states ;  that  they  were  unfit  to  weigh 
the  claims  of  a  harbor  in  another  state.  Of 
course,  it  was  taken  by  my  associates  as  theoret- 


396  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

ical  preaching  and  sneered  at,  but  it  had  its 
effect  just  the  same.  We  did  not,  indeed,  get 
any  change  in  that  particular  bill,  for  they  had 
a  big  majority  and  passed  it  in  spite  of  us,  but 
at  the  close  of  the  debate  I  offered  a  resolution 
as  fundamentally  important  in  principle  as  the 
resolution  that  I  offered  for  the  reservation  of  the 
coal  lands,  with  reference  to  naval  appropria 
tions  in  the  future.  That  resolution  provided 
that  the  President  should  appoint  a  board  of 
naval  experts  to  investigate  all  of  the  naval 
harbors,  yards  and  drydocks  in  the  United  States, 
and  report  to  the  next  Congress  whether  appro 
priations  were  being  made  in  the  best  interests 
of  the  service,  and  whether  appropriations  for 
the  future  ought  to  be  continued  for  these 
various  purposes.  They  voted  me  down,  but  a 
few  weeks  after  this,  Roosevelt,  just  before  he 
went  out  of  office,  appointed  just  such  a  board, 
which  has  since  made  a  valuable  report. 

I  made  a  fight  for  time  to  investigate  all  im 
portant  appropriation  bills  during  that  session, 
and  since  then  immediate  consideration  is  rarely 
asked  upon  the  report  of  an  appropriation  bill. 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  397 

There  is  indeed  a  great  field  for  reform,  not 
only  in  the  method  of  selecting  the  members  of 
the  various  committees  of  the  Senate,  but  in  the 
principle  that  should  control.  I  do  not  believe 
that  any  committee  charged  with  the  respon 
sibility  of  the  expenditure  of  hundreds  of  mil 
lions  of  dollars  of  the  public  moneys  should  be 
composed  of  Senators  or  members  of  the  House 
representing  states  within  which  such  expen 
ditures  are  made.  Frye,  I  remember,  picked 
me  up  in  that  debate,  and  asked  me  if  I  would 
apply  that  same  rule  to  the  Committee  on  Com 
merce,  of  which  he  was  chairman.  I  answered, 
"By  all  means."  I  contended  that  the  final  ex 
penditure  should  be  made  with  a  single  purpose 
in  mind,  and  that  was  the  public  interest,  their 
general  good,  and  that  could  only  be  made  by 
men  who  had  no  political  interest  to  serve.  It  is 
a  common  thing  for  members  and  Senators  to 
urge,  as  one  of  the  arguments  in  making  their 
personal  and  semi-confidential  appeal  to  their 
friends  upon  the  various  committees,  that  the 
expenditure  of  so  many  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  dollars  in  their  districts  or  their  states  would 


398  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

materially  help  them  in  their  coming  election. 
Every  man  who  has  ever  served  in  either  branch 
of  Congress  has  heard  it  over  and  over  again. 
It  is  not  an  exceptional  thing  for  a  man  to  sup 
port  his  claims  for  reelection  on  the  size  of  the 
appropriations  he  has  secured.  Senator  Warren 
of  Wyoming,  within  a  year,  in  a  speech  made  to 
his  constituents,  compared  the  amount  he  and 
his  colleague  had  obtained  in  the  way  of  appro 
priations  for  Wyoming  with  what  other  Senators 
had  been  able  to  get  for  some  of  the  most  im 
portant  states  in  our  union  —  and  boasted  of  it 
as  a  meritorious  achievement. 

The  most  important  thing  of  all  is  to  send 
honest  men  to  Washington  —  men  in  this  time 
of  stress  who  want  to  serve  the  public,  and  no 
body  else.     The  abler  these  men  are,  the  better, 
but  above  all  the  people  should  see  to  it  that 
/    their  representatives  are  honest  —  not  merely 
\money  honest,  but  intellectually  honest. 

If  they   have   the   highest   standards   of   in- 
j    tegrity  and   the  highest  ideals  of  service,  all 
our  problems,  however  complex,  will  be  easily 
solved. 


I 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  399 

Jethro  was  a  wise  counsellor  when  he  said  to 
Moses,  "Thou  shalt  provide  out  of  all  the 
people,  able  men  such  as  fear  God,  men  of  truth, 
hating  covetousness." 

1  have  said  before  in  the  course  of  this  narra 
tive  that  the  legislation  in  which  I  took  the 
greatest  interest  as  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  was  the  enactment  of  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Act.  And  when  I  came 
to  the  Senate,  nineteen  years  later,  I  found  the 
same  subject  as  the  most  important  legislation 
pending.  The  Hepburn  bill,  amending  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Act,  had  passed  the  House 
and  was  before  the  Senate. 

There  followed  months  of  debate  —  one  of 
the  most  important  debates  of  recent  years  - 
through  which  I  sat  waiting  for  some  one  to  raise 
what  seemed  to  me  to 'be  the  real  issues  —  the 
real  questions  as  we  had  met  them  in  our  years 
of  struggle  with  the  railroad  problem  in  Wis 
consin. 

Now,  there  are  just  three  principal  purposes 
in  the  governmental  regulation  of  railroad  rates : 
The  first,  to  prevent  unjust  and  extortionate 


400 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

rates  from  being  imposed   upon  the  country; 

Ithe  second,  to  prevent  discriminations  between 
shippers,  or  localities,  or  commodities;  the 
third,  to  enforce  and  regulate  an  adequate  ser 
vice. 

The  primary  purpose  in  the  enactment  of  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Act  in  1887  —  I  recall 
clearly  the  arguments  and  hearings  —  was  to 
prevent  the  imposition  of  unreasonable  and 
unjust  rates.  It  was  passed  in  response  to  a 
demand  of  the  public  which  had  been  growing 
in  volume  ever  since  the  days  of  Granger  legis 
lation. 

In  saying  this  I  do  not  wish  to  belittle  the 
abuses  arising  from  discriminations  of  which 
rebates  furnish  one  example.  They  have  been 
most  serious  in  their  consequences :  but  the  early 
advocates  of  railroad  regulation  saw  clearly  that 
the  subject  of  deepest  importance  was  not  dis 
criminations  but  unreasonable  rates. 

One  school  of  advocates  of  railway  reg 
ulation  has  adopted  as  its  platform  the  pre 
vention  of  discrimination,  because  it  is  the  least 
difficult  of  the  two  branches  of  the  subject  to 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  401 

deal  with.  It  provokes  the  least  opposition 
from  the  railroads,  and  it  is  always  backed  by 
powerful  organizations  of  shippers.  Again  and 
again  President  Roosevelt  laid  it  down  in  his 
messages  and  public  addresses  that  there  was 
very  little  complaint  that  rates  were  unreason 
able,  but  that  there  was  much  complaint  against 
discriminations.  And  that  statement  was  true. 
It  was  true  for  this  reason.  The  shippers  can 
easily  organize  and  can  make  themselves  heard 
and  felt.  The  thing  in  which  the  shipper  is 
vitally  interested  is  that  his  competitor  shall  not 
have  a  better  rate  or  better  facilities  than  he  has. 
But  he  is  not  concerned  as  to  whether  that  rate 
is  high  or  low,  because  he  does  not  pay  the  rate, 
excepting  in  the  first  instance.  He  always 
charges  the  rate  in  as  a  part  of  the  cost  to  the 
consumer,  who  is  the  real  freight  payer  the 
country  over. 

Now,  the  consumer  who  is  primarily  interested 
in  unreasonable  rates  has  little  or  no  opportunity 
to  be  heard.  Nor  has  he  the  means  of  knowing, 
when  he  buys  his  coal,  his  supplies,  his  food, 
his  lumber,  his  hardware,  how  much  of  the  price 


402  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

he  has  to  pay  is  due  to  excessive  freight  charges. 
He  realizes  that  year  by  year  it  costs  more  for 
everything  he  must  buy,  but  he  is  not  able  to 
put  his  finger  upon  the  particular  amount  of  that 
excessive  cost  which  is  due  to  freight  charges 
made  in  the  shipment  of  raw  material  to  the 
factory,  in  the  shipment  of  the  partially  finished 
product  to  some  other  factory,  and  in  the  further 
shipment  of  the  finished  product  to  the  wholesaler 
or  jobber,  and  in  the  final  shipment  to  the  re 
tailer,  from  whom  he  buys  it.  He  cannot  or 
ganize  and  come  before  a  legislative  committee 
and  make  himself  heard.  Furthermore,  Con 
gress  has  taken  care  that  no  body  of  men,  no 
commission  created  anywhere,  should  have  either 
the  authority  or  the  instrumentalities  through 
which  it  could  ascertain  what  was  really  a  rea 
sonable  freight  rate. 

It  is  true  that  the  Interstate  Commerce  Com 
mission  has  assumed  from  time  to  time  to  say 
that  rates  were  reasonable  or  unreasonable, 
but  it  has  based  its  decisions,  in  that  regard, 
merely  upon  comparisons  of  one  rate  with 
another,  both  of  which  may  be  wholly  unreason- 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  403 

able.  It  has  never  had,  and  has  not  now, 
any  real  standard  of  judgment. 

For  ten  years  after  its  organization  in  1887 
the  Commission  did  assume  the  right  to  fix 
rates;  then  in  1897  came  a  crushing  decision 
of  the  Supreme  Court  which  robbed  it  of  this 
power  and,  indeed,  left  it  worse  than  helpless. 
During  the  next  nine  years,  down  to  1906,  when 
the  Hepburn  bill  to  which  I  have  referred  was 
introduced,  the  committees  were  so  organized 
in  both  Senate  and  House  and  so  dominated  by 
railroad  and  other  corporation  interests  that  it 
was  impossible  to  get  any  real  reform  measure 
reported  out. 

During  all  the  years  from  1897  to  1906  the 
commission,  which  was  a  very  able  one,  kept 
calling  the  attention  of  Congress  and  the  country 
to  its  utter  helplessness  and  urging  legislation. 
Year  after  year  it  repeated  its  pleas,  it  ap 
peared  before  committees,  it  showed  how 
the  railroads  were  rapidly  combining  in  enor 
mous  monopolies.  It  showed  in  1905  that 
unwarranted  increases  in  transportation  rates 
amounting  to  more  than  $100,000,000  a  year 


404  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

had  been  levied  upon  the  people  since  the  com 
mission  lost  its  power  in  1897  -  -  but  Congress 
would  not  move. 

All  this  time,  however,  the  clamor  of  both  the 
shippers  and  the  public  had  been  increasing  in 
volume  and  intensity.  In  1903  Congress  passed 
the  Elkins  law  which  dealt  with  rebates  and 
discriminations  —  for  the  railroads  by  that  time 
had  grown  weary  of  paying  rebates,  and  were 
not  unfavorable  to  having  the  practice  for 
bidden.  But  nothing  was  done  for  the  people 
-  the  consumers  who  were  still  suffering  from 
unreasonable  rates. 

By  1906  the  situation  had  become  so  un 
bearable  and  centres  of  production  through 
out  the  country  had  suffered  to  such  an  extent 
that  there  arose  a  great  outcry  of  protest. 
Organized  bodies  of  men  were  sent  to  Washing 
ton  to  appear  before  the  committees  and  attempt 
to  arouse  them  to  a  sense  of  their  responsibility 
to  the  public,  and  finally  the  railroads,  realizing 
that  something  must  be  done  to  quiet  the  public 
clamor,  loosened  their  hold  sufficiently  to  permit 
a  bill  to  be  reported  out  from  the  Committee 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  405 

on  Interstate  Commerce  of  the  House  of  Rep 
resentatives,  known  as  the  Hepburn  bill.  It 
passed  the  House  and  came  to  the  Senate,  and 
there  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Senate  Com 
mittee  on  Interstate  Commerce,  a  majority  of 
which  was  absolutely  opposed  to  any  legislation 
restoring  any  power  to  the  Interstate  Com 
merce  Commission. 

Finally,  however,  through  an  alliance  of  Dol- 
liver  and  Clapp  with  the  Democrats,  the  bill  was 
reported  out,  and  the  debate  began.  But  in 
credible  as  it  may  seem,  it  is  nevertheless  true 
that  the  bill  did  not  include  in  its  terms  the 
recommendations  which  the  Interstate  Com 
merce  Commission  had  urged  as  necessary  to 
make  it  a  workable  statute  —  the  amendments 
which,  through  these  years,  it  had  been  plead 
ing  with  Congress  to  enact  into  law.  It  never 
touched  the^he&rt  of  th&matter,  namely,  whether  ^ 
the  commission  should  be  given  the  power  to 
determine  what  was  a  reasonable  rate,  and  to 
enforce  its  decisions. 

For  months  I  sat  through  these  debates,  as  I 
say,  waiting  for  some  one  to  raise  the  real  ques- 


406  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

tion.  I  had  studied  the  bill  with  great  care. 
There  was  just  one  portion  of  it  which  was 
important  and  did  really  improve  the  law,  and 
that  was  the  amendment  empowering  the  Inter 
state  Commerce  Commission  to  require  all  rail 
roads  engaged  in  interstate  commerce  to  adopt 
a  uniform  system  of  bookkeeping,  and  author 
izing  the  commission  through  its  examiners  and 
accountants  to  examine  the  books  and  accounts 
of  railroad  companies  at  all  times.  The  value  of 
that  provision  could  not  be  overestimated.  But 
that  was  about  all  there  was  of  a  vital  character 
to  the  act  of  1906. 

I  was  very  loath  to  see  the  bill  pass  in  its 
imperfect  form,  but  I  was  a  new  man  in  the 
Senate,  without  influence  with  the  members  of 
that  body.  I  felt  strongly  that  if  President 
Roosevelt  rightly  estimated  the  strength  of  the 
public  sentiment  in  favor  of  effective  legislation, 
and  would  exert  his  influence  upon  the  Senate, 
that  legislation  which  would  really  count  could 
be  secured.  I  believed  I  knew  exactly  what  was 
required  to  meet  the  necessities  of  the  situation, 
but  I  did  not  feel  that  I  could  thrust  my  views 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  407 

upon  the  President.  I  had  known  him  for 
fifteen  years,  but  I  was  conscious  that  he  had 
been  warned  that  I  was  dangerous  and  extreme 
in  my  views,  and  I  was  in  no  position  to  offer 
him  any  suggestions  unsolicited. 

Lincoln  Steffens  was  in  Washington  during 
that  winter.  On  one  occasion  he  asked  me  why 
I  did  not  go  to  see  the  President  and  warn  him 
of  the  defects  in  the  bill. 

"I  have  been  seeing  the  President,"  he  said, 
4 'and  I  am  going  to  suggest  to  him  that  you 
have  gone  all  over  this  question  in  Wisconsin, 
that  you  have  been  at  it  for  years  up  there,  and 
it  will  do  no  harm  for  him  to  have  a  talk  with 
you  about  it." 

This  he  did,  with  the  result  that  I  received  an 
invitation  to  go  to  the  White  House  and  see  the 
President  one  Sunday  evening  at  ten  o'clock. 
It  was  at  a  time  when  newspaper  reporters  were 
not  about,  and  there  was  no  one  to  take  note  of 
the  fact  or  publish  to  the  country  that  the 
President  was  conferring  with  so  dangerous  a 
person..  He  was  alone,  and  after  chatting  with 
me  a  few  moments,  he  said:  "Senator  La  Fol- 


408  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

lette,  I  sent  fqr  you  to  come  and  talk  with  me 
about  the  rate  bill." 

Then  he  proceeded  to  say  that  the  most  need 
ful  thing  to  be  done  in  the  way  of  changes  in  the 
la'w  was  to  strengthen  it,  so  that  the  injustice 
done  to  a  great  many  shippers  by  discriminations 
would  be  made  impossible. 

"Discrimination  is  important,"  I  said,  "and 
should  not  be  tolerated.  Every  man  who  deals 
with  a  common  carrier  has  a  right  to  treatment 

' 

on  an  equal  footing  with  every  other  shipper  of 
the  same  product.  But  the  question,  Mr.  Presi 
dent,  is  very  much  bigger  than  that.  To  begin 
writh,  the  first  and  the  vital  thing  in  which  the 
great  body  of  the  people  of  this  country  are 
interested  is  in  having  transportation  charges 
reasonable." 

Then  I  took  up  and  discussed  with  him  the 
changes  that  ought  to  be  made  in  the  bill.  I  sat 
with  him  until  twelve  o'clock  that  night,  and  I 
did  not  outstay  my  welcome  either.  I  found 
him  a  very  good  listener  and  I  had  the  feeling 
that  I  had  made  some  impression  upon  him. 
In  the  course  of  my  talk  he  stopped  me  to  say, 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  409 

"But  you  can't  get  any  such  bill  as  that  through 
this  Congress." 

My  answer  was,  "That  is  not  the  first  con 
sideration,  Mr.  President. ' ' 

"But,"  he  said,  "I  want  to  get  something 
through." 

And  I  remember  very  clearly  saying  to  him, 
"Mr.  President,  you  pass  such  a  bill  as  is  pend 
ing  in  the  Senate,  and  a  successor  in  your  place 
Will  have  to  tear  it  to  pieces  and  build  it  all  over  «. 
again.  The  record  that  your  administration 
leaves  on  this  legislation  will  count  for  a  world 
more  in  your  history,  and  in  the  history  of  the 
country,  if  you  will  try  to  get  what  is  right  even 
though  you  fail,  than  if  you  take  what  you  can 
get,  knowing  that  it  does  not  reach  the  vitals  of 
this  question."  I  said:  "If  you  will  send  a 
special  message  to  Congress  right  now,  while  this 
bill  is  pending,  pointing  out  the  things  needful 
to  be  done,  you  may  not  get  it  through  this 
session,  but  you  have  got  an  organized  senti 
ment  that  has  been  building  up  for  nine  years; 
and  if  you  lay  down  clearly,  so  the  public  can 
understand  just  what  ought  to  be  done,  and  this 


410  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

Congress  fails  to  act,  in  the  next  Congress  you 
will  have  the  people  back  of  you  more  strongly 
than  ever.  If  you  went  to  the  end  of  your  service 
as  President,  reiterating  in  your  messages  every 
time  you  dealt  with  the  subject  the  true  lines 
upon  which  this  legislation  should  be  written 
and  the  public  interest  protected,  you  will  have 
left  in  your  messages  a  monument  compared 
with  which  such  a  statute  as  this  would  be 
trivial." 

But  however  the  President  may  have  been 
impressed  by  what  I  said,  and  I  am  quite  sure 
he  was  impressed,  no  message  came  from  him  on 
the  subject  of  strengthening  the  bill  funda 
mentally.  So  I  marked  out  my  own  course  and 
made  up  my  mind  that  I  would  put  before  the 
Senate  and  the  country  the  defects  in  the  bill 
and  would  offer  the  necessary  amendments  to 
make  it  an  effective  statute.  I  had  no  expec 
tation  of  being  able  to  secure  the  adoption  of  any 
amendments  unless  I  could  get  the  support  of 
the  administration  for  them,  but  I  knew  that  a 
beginning  must  be  made  to  build  up  public 
opinion  for  another  try  at  the  law  a  few  years 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  411 

later.  I  spent  several  weeks  preparing  my  ar 
gument  and  beginning  on  April  19,  1906, 1  spoke 
for  about  two  hours  and  a  half,  the  same  length 
of  time  on  the  20th,  and  the  same  on  the  21st. 
I  reviewed  the  history  of  the  whole  subject. 
The  printed  speeches  (published  together)  num 
bered  148  pages. 

I  had  not  been  sneaking  more  than  ten  min 
utes  before  I  found  myself  without  any  Republi 
can  colleagues  to  listen  to  me,  aside  from  the 
presiding  officer,  and  the  Senator  from  New 
Jersey,  Mr.  Kean,  who  seemed  to  have  been  left 
on  guard.  I  understood  perfectly  well  that  I 
was  being  rebuked.  It  was  not  altogether  be 
cause  I  was  a  new  man  in  the  Senate,  but  I  had 
no  sympathy,  no  fellowship,  no  welcome  from 
Republican  members  of  the  Senate  when  I  en 
tered.  I  knew  that  I  was  familiar  with  my 
subject.  I  had  studied  it  for  several  years.  In 
Wisconsin  it  had  been  the  one  subject,  above 
all  others,  which  had  been  discussed,  investi 
gated,  and  legislated  upon.  I  knew  that  things 
had  been  done  there  in  a  fundamental  way,  and 
that  I  had  been  a  part  of  the  doing,  and  I  felt 


412  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

that  my  experience  should  be  of  some  value  to 
the  country.  So  I  could  not  help  saying: 

"Mr.  President,  I  pause  in  my  remarks  to  say 
this.  I  cannot  be  wholly  indifferent  to  the 
fact  that  Senators  by  their  absence  at  this  time 
indicate  their  want  of  interest  in  what  I  may 
have  to  say  upon  this  subject.  The  public  is 
interested.  Unless  this  important  subject  is 
rightly  settled,  seats  now  temporarily  vacant 
may  be  permanently  vacated  by  those  who  have 
the  right  to  occupy  them  at  this  time." 

It  was  said  very  quietly,  but  it  elicited  general 
applause  in  the  galleries,  which  immediately 
brought  Senator  Kean  to  his  feet  to  demand 
that  the  rule  of  the  Senate  be  enforced  and  the 
galleries  cleared.  The  presiding  officer  there 
upon  admonished  the  occupants  of  the  galleries 
that  upon  a  recurrence  of  what  had  transpired 
the  galleries  would  be  cleared. 

What  occurred  in  the  Senate  gallery  found 
its  way  into  the  cloak  rooms  and  committee 
rooms,  whence  the  Senators  had  retired,  and 
before  long  they  began  drifting  back  into  the 
Senate,  and  it  is  fair  to  say  that  throughout 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  413 

the  remainder  of  my  speech  I  had  exceptional 
attention. 

Senator  Dolliver  was  a  member  of  the  com 
mittee  that  had  framed  this  bill,  and  when  I 
began  to  attack  what  was  called  the  Hepburn- 
Dolliver  bill,  naturally  he  felt  compelled  to 
defend  it.  He  had  been  for  six  or  seven  years 
a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Interstate  Com 
merce  and  he  did  not  seem  to  understand  what 
I  was  talking  about  when  I  suggested  the  radical 
defect  in  the  bill  —  that  it  was  not  possible  for 
the  commission  to  make  and  enforce  reasonable 
rates,  even  if  this  bill  passed.  He  thought  my 
statement  preposterous.  Then  he  proceeded 
to  point  out  that  section  so  and  so  of  the  bill 
declared  every  unreasonable  rate  to  be  unlawful; 
and  then  almost  in  the  next  sentence  it  stated 
that  the  commission  should  have  authority  to 
enforce  reasonable  rates.  He  seemed  to  think 
that  this  was  all  that  was  necessary,  and  I  do 
not  believe  that  Dolliver  or  any  other  man  in  the 
Senate  at  that  time  had  ever  seriously  considered 
the  idea  of  determining  the  value  of  the  property, 
the  cost  of  maintenance  and  the  cost  of  opera- 


414  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

tion  as  a  necessary  basis  for  fixing  the  reason 
ableness  of  rates.  The  thing  seemed  to  break 
upon  the  Senate  as  a  startling  idea,  and  yet  most 
of  them  as  business  men  would  never  have 
thought  of  fixing  a  price  on  a  commodity  or  for 
a  service  without  knowing  definitely  what  that 
service  cost.  True,  the  commission  had  rec 
ommended  and  urged  a  valuation  of  the  rail 
roads  in  its  reports,  but  it  had  never  been 
aired  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate. 

I  pointed  out  to  Senator  Dolliver  in  the  course 
of  the  debate  that  there  were  no  means  by  which 
the  commission  could  ascertain  what  was  a 
reasonable  rate;  that  under  the  law  of  1887, 
as  proposed  to  be  amended  by  the  pending  bill, 
it  would  be  possible  for  the  commission  to 
determine  whether  rates  were  relatively  reason 
able,  but  not  that  they  were  reasonable  per  se; 
that  one  rate  could  be  compared  with  another, 
but  that  the  commission  had  no  means  of  deter 
mining  whether  either  rate  so  compared  was  it 
self  a  reasonable  rate.  And  then  I  proceeded 
to  lay  down  the  basis  for  determining  reason 
able  rates,  and  we  had  a  running  debate  for 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  415 

about  an  hour,  when  Dolliver,  who  had  come 
down  until  he  stood  squarely  in  front  of  my 
desk,  said: 

"Mr.  President,  I  am  disposed  to  sympathize 
with  the  views  of  the  Senator  from  Wisconsin: 
I  believe  that  the  bill  ought  to  be  amended." 

And  he  was  one  of  five  other  Senators  be 
sides  myself  on  the  Republican  side  who  voted 
for  the  amendment  to  authorize  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Commission  to  ascertain  the  value 
of  the  railroad  property  of  the  country.  And 
from  that  time  on  Senator  Dolliver,  as  long  as 
he  lived,  stood  with  me  whenever  the  question 
of  valuation  was  raised. 

Dolliver  was  honest-minded,  and  wrhen  his 
intellect  pointed  the  way,  that  way  Dolliver 
went  always.  I  shall  have  more  to  say  of  him 
later  in  this  narrative. 

I  do  not  think  the  "stand-patters"  of  the 
Senate  understood  what  I  was  talking  about 
when  I  discussed  the  Hepburn-Dolliver  bill. 
They  did  not  follow  me  closely  enough  to  under 
stand.  But  on  the  Democratic  side  of  the 
Senate  chamber  I  had  excellent  attention,  and 


416  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

before  I  finished  I  had  a  goodly  number  on  the 
other  side. 

When  the  time  came  to  offer  amendments  I 
carefully  canvassed  the  Democratic  side  of  the 
house,  and  secured  the  pledges  of  enough  Sen 
ators  to  enable  me  to  get  a  roll  call  on  the  amend 
ments  as  I  offered  them.  I  made  no  personal 
appeal  to  any  Senator  to  vote  for  any  amend 
ment.  All  that  I  asked  was  that  they  give  me 
an  opportunity  to  put  the  Senate  on  record. 
And  I  found  the  Democrats  very  ready  to  do 
that. 

In  offering  each  amendment  I  made  perhaps  a 
five  or  ten  minute  statement,  and  then  demanded 
the  yeas  and  nays.  On  the  amendment  for  the 
valuation  of  railways  engaged  in  interstate 
commerce  I  demonstrated  conclusively  the  over 
capitalization  of  the  railroads  of  the  country. 
I  argued  that  if  the  same  system  were  applied 
which  we  were  then  applying  in  Wisconsin - 
that  is,  the  true  value  of  the  property  ascer 
tained  together  with  the  cost  of  maintaining  the 
property  and  the  cost  of  operating  the  property, 
and  the  rates  so  adjusted  as  to  make  a  fair  re- 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  417 

turn  to  the  railroads  upon  the  actual  investment 
made  by  ;fche  roads  and  not  upon  capitalization— 
that  it  would  be  working  a  saving  in  transporta 
tion  charges  of  something  more  than  $400,000,- 
000  to  the  people  of  this  country  every  twelve 
months.  In  support  of  that  amendment  I  used 
the  reports  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commis 
sion,  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  demonstration  made  in 
Wisconsin.  And  yet,  when  the  roll  was  called,  my 
amendment  was  beaten  40  to  27,  the  only  Re 
publicans  voting  for  it  being  Burkett,  Dolliver, 
Elkins,  Gamble,  La  Toilette,  Warner. 

There  were  nine  amendments  in  all.  Eight 
of  them  had  the  endorsement  of  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Commission,  an  unprejudiced  body. 
Each  had  reason  and  justice  back  of  it.  No 
argument  could  be  made  against  any  one  of 
them,  and  no  argument  ever  was  made  on  the 
floor  against  their  merits  either  at  that  time  or 

(since.  There  was  nothing  to  be  said  on  the 
other  side. 

Coming  home  on  the  street  car  one  day,  I 
wondered  how  far  they  would  go.  And  I  took 


418  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

a  tab  out  of  my  pocket  and  outlined  an  amend 
ment  to  the  effect  that  any  federal  judge  should 
be  disqualified  from  hearing,  trying  or  determin 
ing  any  case  for  the  regulation  of  railway  rates 
against  any  road  in  which  he  was  a  stockholder, 
or  whose  bonds  he  owned,  or  upon  which  he  used 
free  passes.  And  that  amendment  was  lost 
40  to  27.  There  were  only  three  Republicans 
who  thought  that  a  federal  judge  ought  not  to 
own  stock  in  a  road  and  then  hear,  try  and  deter 
mine  a  case  involving  its  interests ! 

Formerly,  record  votes  on  delicate  questions 
were  always  avoided  in  the  Senate,  if  possible; 
but  I  had  a  purpose  in  thus  committing  the 
Senators  on  these  phases  of  railroad  control.  I 
wanted  to  show  exactly  where  they  stood  and 
why. 

During  the  summer  which  followed  I  made  a 
speaking  tour  that  covered  nearly  all  the  states 
from  New  York  to  California,  and  everywhere  I 
went  I  used  these  roll-call  records  of  the  Senate. 
I  made  twenty-one  speeches  in  which  I  showed 
the  record  of  Dry  den  of  New  Jersey,  and  I  have 
no  doubt  that  the  proof  which  these  roll  calls 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  419 

furnished  of  the  true  attitude  of  Senators  served 
to  retire  not  a  few  of  them.  There  were  twenty- 
four  "stand-pat"  members  of  the  Senate  at  that 
time  (1906)  wlio  are  not  there  to-day. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  next  session  (1907)  I 
determined  to  press  forward  with  constructive 
railroad  legislation  and  I  introduced  a  bill 
providing  for  a  comprehensive  valuation  of  the 
railroads  as  a  basis  for  establishing  just  and 
reasonable  rates.  I  submitted  the  bill  before 
its  introduction  to  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Comissioners  and  had  the  benefit  of  their  advice 
and  suggestions. 

After  introducing  it  in  the  Senate  I  tried  for 
weeks  to  get  a  hearing  upon  it  before  the  com 
mittee,  but  was  wiiolly  unable  to  do  so. 

I  introduced  the  bill  again  at  the  beginning  of 
the  next  session  of  Congress  in  March,  1909,  and 
I  have  kept  it  before  the  Senate  committee  ever 
since.  I  believe  absolutely  that  it  is  the  only 
basis  of  a  just  settlement  of  the  problem.  I 
know  how  well  the  plan  is  being  worked  out  in 
Wisconsin,  and  I  am  certain  sooner  or  later  that 
the  national  government  must  adopt  it. 


420  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

To  illustrate  the  futility  of  the  Hepburn  law 
as  passed,  it  is  worth  noting  that  the  railroads 
began  almost  immediately  to  raise  their  rates, 
and  they  accompanied  these  raises  by  a  system 
atic  and  costly  campaign  of  publicity  to  make 
the  public  believe  that  the  advances  were 
necessary.  But  in  spite  of  this,  during  the  years 
1907,  1908  and  1909  a  number  of  large  meetings 
were  held  at  which  shippers,  manufacturers 
and  producers  protested  against  the  raises. 

And  in  1910,  the  next  railroad  legislation  which 
really  got  before  Congress  was  the  so-called 
Commerce  Court  bill,  though  the  establishment 
of  a  Commerce  Court  was  only  one  of  its  provi 
sions.  That  bill  as  it  came  from  Attorney- 
General  Wickersham  with  the  approval  of 
President  Taft  was,  in  all  the  history  of  railroad 
legislation,  the  rankest,  boldest  betrayal  of  public 
interest  ever  proposed  in  any  legislative 
body.  If  it  had  been  passed  as  introduced  it 
would  have  lost  to  the  people  all  the  ground  that 
had  been  gained  in  the  long  struggle  with  the 
railroad  corporations.  The  bill  as  it  was  origi 
nally  presented  practically  took  all  the  power 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  421 

away  from  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commis 
sion,  deprived  it  of  the  right  of  employing 
counsel  to  defend  its  own  orders  and  trans 
ferred  all  that  authority  to  the  Attorney- Gen 
eral's  office.  It  bestowed  upon  the  railroads 
much  larger  rights  in  contesting  before  the 
courts  the  orders  of  the  commission  than  they 
had  ever  had  before,  and  cut  out,  root  and 
branch,  the  right  formerly  enjoyed  by  outside 
interested  parties  and  communities  of  appearing 
and  paying  their  own  attorneys  to  aid  in  sus 
taining  the  orders  of  the  commission. 

In  short,  it  threw  the  determination  of  rail 
road  questions  back  into  the  hands  of  the 
Attorney- General  and  the  courts. 

Before  the  Progressives  in  the  Senate  began 
an  attack  upon  this  bill  I  made  a  speech  review 
ing  the  acts  of  the  present  Attorney-General, 
Mr.  Wickersham,  in  the  very  important- matter 
of  the  New  Haven  Railroad  cases.  The  dis 
missal  of  these  suits,  which  had  been  brought 
before  Mr.  Roosevelt  left  the  White  House,  was 
almost  the  first  act  of  surrender  to  the  interests 
on  the  part  of  the  Taft  administration. 


422  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

In  my  speech  I  showed  the  strength  of  the 
government's  case  against  the  New  Haven 
merger,  yet  the  first  act  of  the  Taft  adminis 
tration,  through  the  Attorney- General,  was  to 
hand  over  all  that  great  section  of  New  England 
to  the  New  Haven  Railroad,  which  had  acquired 
control  not  only  of  all  means  of  transportation 
by  rail,  but  had  bankrupted  or  bought  in  prac 
tically  all  of  the  steamship  and  trolley  lines,  so 
that  to-day  you  cannot  ship  a  pound  of  any 
thing  from  Massachusetts  excepting  on  the 
terms  imposed  by  a  single  corporation.  That 
whole  speech  was  specifically  aimed  against  that 
provision  of  the  law  which  gave  the  Attorney- 
General  exclusive  power  in  connection  with  the 
prosecution  of  cases.  It  was  aimed  to  sound  a 
warning  in  the  ears  of  the  Senate  when  we  came 
to  consider  the  question  of  clothing  the  Depart 
ment  of  Justice  with  the  sole  power  of  saying 
the  final  word  with  reference  to  litigation  be 
tween  the  people  and  the  railroads.  And  I 
think  my  speech  had  much  to  do  in  preventing 
the  adoption  of  this  provision  of  the  law. 

The  first  speech  that  I  made  on  the  Commerce 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  423 

Court  bill  was  on  April  12,  1910,  on  the  New 
Haven  merger.  I  made  the  other  speeches  on 
the  bill  April  29,  May  25  and  26,  May  31,  and 
June  3.  On  May  31  I  offered  my  amendment 
for  the  valuation  of  railroads  as  a  part  of  this 
bill,  and  made  an  argument  upon  it.  My  amend 
ment  was  defeated  by  a  vote  of  33  to  29;  11  of  the 
29  were  Republican;  the  33  who  opposed  it  were 
all  Republicans. 

The  reception  of  my  speeches  by  the  Senate 
in  1910  on  the  railroad  question  was  markedly 
in  contrast  with  the  reception  given  in  1906. 

In  the  fight  made  on  the  President's  railroad 
bill  Senators  Clapp  and  Cummins,  who  were 
members  of  the  committee,  took  very  active 
part.  Senator  Cummins,  particularly  during 
the  earlier  weeks  of  the  contest,  was  almost 
constantly  in  the  debate.  The  entire  Progres 
sive  group  carried  the  great  burden  of  the  con 
test  against  the  administration  bill,  and  so 
strong  and  so  effective  was  their  attack,  and  so 
reasonable  their  arguments,  that  the  adminis 
tration  Senators  on  the  floor  were  compelled  to 
abandon  entire  sections  of  the  bill  to  avoid  the 


424  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

humiliation  of  being  overwhelmingly  voted  down 
in  the  Senate. 

Several  sections  of  the  bill  were  put  forward 
in  the  beginning  under  the  guise  of  reforming 
abuses  in  watering  and  overcapitalizing  rail 
road  properties.  These  sections,  under  the  mask 
of  preventing  overcapitalization,  were  in  fact 
designed  to  legalize  every  dollar  of  the  railroad 
capitalization  of  the  country,  and  under  cover  of 
ingeniously  worded  phraseology  would  have 
made  possible  unlimited  railroad  stock- jobbing 
for  all  future  time. 

Mr.  Taft,  in  an  interview  published  in  the 
Outlook  December  2,  1911,  takes  to  himself  credit 
for  the  railroad  legislation  as  it  finally  passed. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  fangs  in  this  bill  as  orig 
inally  introduced  were,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Commerce  Court  provisions,  all  drawn  by  the 
fight  of  the  Progressives.  We  could  not,  how 
ever,  prevent  the  establishment  of  a  Commerce 
Court,  which  is  in  a  position  to  destroy,  and 
is  now  actually  destroying,  the  work  of  the 
most  progressive  Interstate  Commerce  Com 
mission  the  country  has  ever  had.  It  is  scarcely 


ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE  425 

possible  to  speak  of  the  course  of  the  administra 
tion  upon  this  legislation  in  temperate  language. 
I  wish  in  this  place  to  refer  briefly — and  I  must 
do  it  more  briefly  than  the  matter  deserves  — 
to  another  fight  I  made  in  which  I  had  to  meet 
the  railroad  interests  as  they  had  entrenched 
themselves  in  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commit 
tee.  The  Railroad  Brotherhoods  of  Engineers, 
Firemen  and  Trainmen,  a  remarkably  intelligent 
body  of  men,  had  long  maintained  a  very 
efficient  and  faithful  legislative  representative, 
Mr.  Hugh  Fuller,  here  at  the  national  capital, 
but  they  had  found  it  impossible  even  to  get  a 
record  vote  on  important  measures  in  which 
they  were  interested.  No  bill  in  their  interests 
relating  to  hours  of  service  or  liability  of  the 
employer  for  negligence  was  permitted  to  get 
out  of  the  committee.  I  took  up  the  matter  of 
an  Employers'  Liability  law  and  attempted  in 
1906  to  have  it  adopted  as  an  amendment 
the  Interstate  Commerce  Act.  Failing  in  this, 
by  an  unexpected  move  I  got  a  bill  before  the 
Senate  where  I  could  force  a  record  vote.  Now, 
no  Senator  wanted  to  put  himself  wrong  with 


426  ALONE  IN  THE  SENATE 

the  railway  employees,  and  so  after  fencing  for 
delay  I  finally  got  it  passed  without  a  roll  call. 
This  law,  having  been  held  unconstitutional  by 
the  supreme  court  (by  a  vote  of  five  to  four),  I 
introduced  another  Employers'  Liability  bill  in 
the  next  session,  and  had  it  referred  to  the  Com 
mittee  on  Education  and  Labor  (of  which  Dolliver 
was  chairman)  instead  of  to  the  Committee  on 
Interstate  Commerce.  The  bill  was  reported 
out  by  Dolliver,  was  passed  and  is  now  the  law. 
I  also  secured  the  passage  in  1907,  after  much 
opposition  and  filibustering,  of  a  law  to  limit 
the  hours  of  continuous  service  of  railroad  em 
ployees.  This  law  has  been  of  great  use  in 
preventing  those  accidents  which  formerly  arose 
from  the  continuous  employment  of  men  for 
twenty-four  or  even  thirty-six  hours  without 
sleep  or  rest. 


CHAPTER  X 


REINFORCEMENTS:  A  NATIONAL  PROGRESSIVE 
MOVEMENT 

WHAT  is  undoubtedly  the  most  signifi 
cant  development  of  recent  years  in 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States, 
especially   in  the   Senate,  has  been  the  growth 
of  the  so-called  Progressive  group  —  reflecting 
a  similar  change  in  political  view  upon  the  part 
of  the  people  of  the  country. 

When  I  entered  the  Senate  I  was  alone. 
Dolliver,  Clapp,  and  Beveridge,  all  of  whom  were 
afterward  active  Progressives,  had  been  mem 
bers  of  the  Senate  for  some  time  and  were  still 
recognized  as  regular,  though  Dolliver  had 
shown  some  symptoms  of  revolt.  I  have  al 
ready  described  the  first  occasion  upon  which 
the  few  Republican  Senators  who  were  willing  to 
oppose  the  reactionary  bosses  were  brought  to- 

427 


428  REINFORCEMENTS 

gether  —  upon  the  Naval  Appropriation  bill  in 
January,  1909.  Later,  after  we  got  into  the 
tariff  fight  in  1909,  we  began  to  know  who  could 
be  dependeifupon,  and  our  meetings  were  fre 
quent.  Dolliver,  Beveridge,  and  Clapp  were 
here  when  I  came;  Dixon  and  Bourne  en 
tered  March  4,  1907;  Borah,  March,  1908;  Cum- 
I  mins,  November,  1908;  and  Bristow,  March, 
1909.  This  was  the  group  which  generally 
worked  together. 

I  cannot  let  this  occasion  pass  without  some 
special  reference  to  Dolliver,  who,  in  the  last 
year  of  his  service  in  the  Senate,  became  a  great 
power  for  good. 

Dolliver  was  i  wonderfully  gifted  man.  His 
command  of  language  and  facility  of  expression 
equaled  that  of  any  man  I  ever  knew.  He  had 
imagination,  humor,  alertness.  He  could  com 
mand  all  of  his  powers  instantly.  This  was 
something  of  a  misfortune  to  Dolliver,  because 
it  tempted  him  often  to  depend  upon  this  won 
derful  readiness  of  power  instead  of  engaging 
in  the  drudgery  which  is  necessary  to  enable 
any  man  to  master  first  the  principles  and  then 


REINFORCEMENTS  429 

the  details  of  a  complex  problem.  He  entered 
public  life  very  young  and  everything  came  to 
him  easily.  He  did  not  have  to  encounter 
opposition  in  his  own  district.  He  did  not 
have  to  fight  for  anything  in  his  own  state. 
He  was  taken  up  by  the  leaders  here  in  the  House 
and  afterward  in  the  Senate.  He  was  always 
in  demand  as  a  speaker  at  banquets,  always 
flattered  and  applauded,  and  he  drifted  along 
with  the  old  crowd.  So,  when  I  came  to  the 
Senate  Dolliver  was  one  of  the  men  put  forward 
to  answer  any  criticism  that  I  might  offer  against 
things  as  they  existed.  Even  after  the  debate 
on  the  railroad  bill,  to  which  I  referred  in 
the  last  chapter,  Dolliver  was  lecturing  in  the 
same  field  that  I  was  covering.  I  had  been  out 
through  Iowa  before  I  came  to  the  Senate,  and 
I  had  reviewed  the  struggle  that  was  then  on  in 
Congress  to  amend  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Act.  I  spoke  in  Dolliver 's  town  and  I  spoke 
in  Hepburn's  town,  and  they  came  in  for  my 
criticism  against  the  committees  for  holding  up 
legislation.  Senator  Dolliver  was  piqued  and 
prepared  a  speech  for  the  chautauqua  platform 


430  REINFORCEMENTS 

designed  to  answer  my  criticism,  though  he  never 
mentioned  my  name.  So,  when  I  came  to  the 
Senate,  although  we  had  been  good  friends  in  the 
House,  and  though  he  greeted  me  cordially,  I 
felt  that  he  was  more  than  a  little  against  me. 

In  1908  I  was  the  one  Republican  in  the 
Senate  who  made  a  fight  on  the  Emergency 
Currency  bill.  Dolliver  came  back  a  day  or 
two  before  the  vote  was  to  be  taken.  And  he 
was  staged  for  an  eloquent  fifteen  or  twenty 
minute  talk  aimed  directly  at  me.  He  did  not 
mention  my  name,  of  course,  but  it  was  intended 
as  a  rebuke  to  me. 

I  used  to  say  to  Mrs.  La-  Follette,  "Dolliver 
sometime  or  other  will  come  to  himself,"  and 
so  I  never  would  be  drawn  into  any  controversy 
with  him  which  would  lead  to  a  breach  in  our 
friendly  personal  relations. 

As  we  were  coming  into  the  new  session,  in 
1909,  and  the  tariff  bill  was  coming  up,  I  thought 
a  great  deal  about  Dolliver.  One  day  I  went 
over  to  his  seat  and  said,  "Senator,  I  want  you 
to  come  down  to  my  committee  room.  I  want 
to  talk  with  you." 


REINFORCEMENTS  431 

He  said,  "Sit  down  and  talk  here." 

"No,"  I  said,  "I  want  a  serious  talk  with  you. 
We  will  both  get  angry  before  we  get  through, 
but  we  will  stay  until  we  get  it  over  with." 

"What  is  it  all  about,  Bob?"  he  asked. 

"I  want  to  make  you  see  that  you  ought  to 
break  away  from  Aldrich,"  and  I  pointed  to 
the  other  fellows  sitting  all  about  him.  "These 
fellows  are  not  serving  the  public;  they  are  be 
traying  the  public  and  you  are  following  them. 
Your  place  is  at  the  head  of  a  movement  here  in 
the  Senate  and  in  the  country  for  the  public 
interest." 

He  said,  "Bob,  your  liver  is  all  out  of  order; 
you're  jaundiced.  You  see  things  awry:  cheer 
up." 

So  he  laughed  and  turned  me  off  with  a  joke, 
and  I  did  not  get  any  serious  talk  with  him  until 
March,  after  the  committees  were  selected. 
Allison  was  dead  and  Cummins  had  succeeded 
him.  Dolliver  surrendered  his  place  on  the 
Committee  on  Interstate  Commerce  so  that 
Cummins  could  have  a  good  committee  as 
signment.  According  to  Senate  usage  two 


432  REINFORCEMENTS 

Senators  representing  the  same  state  and 
belonging  to  the  same  political  party  cannot 
serve  on  the  same  committee.  Dolliver  had 
gone  to  the  boss  of  the  Senate,  Mr.  Aldrich, 
and  said,  "Will  you  put  Cummins  on  that 
committee  if  I  resign?" 

"Why,  if  you  want  it,  I  will,"  said  Aldrich. 

Having  resigned  from  that  committee  to 
make  way  for  Cummins,  he  applied  for  appoint 
ment  to  the  vacancy  created  by  Allison's  death 
on  the  Committee  on  Finance.  Dolliver  had  a 
right  to  expect  that  his  friends,  Aldrich  and  the 
rest,  would  put  him  on.  But  after  getting  his 
resignation  from  the  Committee  on  Interstate 
Commerce,  Dolliver  was  not  only  denied  a  place 
on  the  Committee  on  Finance,  upon  which  he 
had  set  his  heart,  but  Cummins  himself  came 
within  a  hair's  breadth  of  losing  the  appoint 
ment  to  the  Committee  on  Interstate  Com 
merce. 

Meeting  Dolliver  in  the  corridor  one  day  after 
the  appointments  were  announced,  I  said  to 
him,  "Jonathan,  are  you  pretty  nearly  ready  to 
have  that  conference  with  me?" 


REINFORCEMENTS  433 

He  answered,  "Yes,  I  am  coming  over  to  see 
you." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "come  now." 

And  he  went  with  me  to  my  committee  room. 
We  spent  several  hours  together.  Dolliver 
reviewed  all  of  his  associations  with  these 
masters  of  legislation  in  the  House  and  in  the 
Senate.  He  went  back  to  the  treatment  which 
he  had  received  on  the  Committee  on  Interstate 
Commerce  when  Aldrich  took  his  railroad  bill 
away  from  him  by  a  combination  of  votes  in 
the  committee  and  placed  him  in  the  humiliat 
ing  situation  of  having  to  see  his  bill  reported 
by  a  Democratic  member  of  the  committee.  He 
told  me  then  of  the  difficulty  with  which  he 
held  himself  in  restraint  from  making  an  out 
break  against  Aldrich  and  the  system,  but  that 
he  had  yielded  to  the  counsel  of  his  old  col 
league,  Senator  Allison.  But  he  said  that  he 
had  told  Allison  that  he  could  not  stand  it 
much  longer;  that  he  was  going  to  break  away 
and  declare  his  independence  of  the  system  in 
the  Senate  which  was  manipulating  legislation 
for  the  benefit  of  great  interests.  And  Alii- 


\ 

434  REINFORCEMENTS 

son,  whom  he  loved  like  a  father,  had  said  to 
him: 

"  Jonathan,  don't  do  it;  don't  do  it  now:  wait 
until  I  am  gone.  I  know  it  is  wrong.  It  has 
grown  up  here  gradually  in  the  last  quarter  of  a 
century.  I  have  gone  along  with  it.  These 
men  are  my  associates.  I  have  only  a  little 
while  left,  and  I  haven't  the  strength  to  break 
away.  It  has  got  to  come.  It  is  a  cancer;  it's 
got  to  be  cut  out.  But  wait  until  I  am  gone, 
and  then  go  into  this  new  movement  where  you 
belong." 

Dolliver  said  to  me,  "From  this  time  on  I  am 
going  to  be  independent.  I  am  going  to  serve 
my  conscience.  I  have  been  lecturing,  I  have 
,  saved  my  dollars  and  put  them  into  a  farm  up 
there  in  Iowa.  I  am  going  to  judgment  in  the 
next  twenty  years,  and  I  am  going  so  I  can  look 
my  Maker  in  the  face.  I  do  not  have  to  stay 
in  public  life.  I  can  take  my  books,  my  wife, 
and  my  children,  and  if  I  am  dismissed  from  the 
service  for  following  my  conviction  I  will  go 
out  to  my  farm,  and  stay  there  until  the  call 


comes." 


Copyright,  1908,  by  Harris 
JONATHAN    P.    DOLLIVER 


Ewing 


"Dolliver  never  came  to   the  fulness  of   his  strength  until  this  great 
political  revolution  took  place  within  him." 


REINFORCEMENTS  435 

After  that  I  don't  know  how  many  times 
Dolliver,  when  our  little  group  would  be  con 
ferring,  would  turn  toward  me  and  say,  "Bob 
has  been  taking  the  gaff  all  these  years,  and  isn't 
going  to  take  it  alone  any  longer." 

Dolliver  never  came  to  the  fulness  of  his 
strength  until  this  great  political  revolution 
took  place  within  him.  And  then  it  awaked 
the  sleeping  giant  and  he  became  a  student  of 
the  details  of  the  tariff;  he  dug  it  out  by  the 
roots. 

Dolliver  had  a  very  remarkable  memory. 
He  often  told  me  about  how  he  had  trained 
it.^  His  father  had  insisted  upon  his  com 
mitting  all  of  his  Latin  themes  and  whole 
books  of  the  Bible  to  memory.  He  could  write 
out  a  speech  and  deliver  it  almost  literally  as 
it  was  written. 

He  was  attacked  by  the  stand-patters  of  Iowa 
when  he  became  a  Progressive,  and  he  was  not 
credited  even  by  Progressives  with  that  sincerity 
of  conviction  which  he  was  in  every  way  entitled 
to.  Many  of  those  in  the  Progressive  ranks 
who  had  suffered  under  his  keen  witticisms 


436  REINFORCEMENTS 

could  not  believe  that  Dolliver  had  changed 
from  conviction.  But  I  know  that  he  did.  A 
close  study  of  his  record  will  show  how,  even 
while  Allison  still  lived,  he  was  constantly 
straining  at  the  bonds  which  kept  him  in  the 
ranks  on  that  side.  He  and  Clapp  came  to 
gether.  They  were  very  dear  friends  —  often 
^together  in  a  social  way.  They  understood  and 
appreciated  each  other.  They  were  not  at  all 
alike,  but  they  had  a  very  strong  affection  for 
each  other. 

It  was  the  fight  on  the  Payne-Aldrich  tariff 
bill  which  brought  us  all  together.  The  ad 
ministration  of  Roosevelt  had  come  to  an  end 
on  March  4,  1909,  with  nothing  to  its  credit 
in  the  way  of  tariff  revision.  That  thorny 
problem  fell  to  the  unfortunate  Mr.  Taft. 

Now,  Mr.  Taft,  fully  appreciating  the  public 
clamor  for  tariff  changes,  and  knowing  that  he 
could  not  be  elected  unless  he  took  a  strong 
stand,  interpreted  the  platform  pledge  with 
respect  to  tariff  revision  in  a  speech  at  Mil 
waukee  on  September  24,  1908,  as  follows: 

"I  can  say  that  our  party  is  pledged  to   a 


REINFORCEMENTS  437 

genuine  revision,  and  as  temporary  head  of  that 
party  and  President  of  the  United  States,  if  it 
be  successful  in  November,  I  expect  to  use  all 
the  influence  I  have  by  calling  immediately 
a  special  session  and  by  recommendations  to 
Congress  to  secure  a  genuine  and  honest  re 


vision.'' 


He  also  promised  a  "substantial  revision  down 
ward"  » 

As  soon  as  he  was  inaugurated  President  Taft 
called  an  extraordinary  session  of  Congress  to 
meet  on  March  15,  1909  —  and  the  work  of  the 
tariff  revision  began. 

Immediately,  as  will  be  remembered,  the 
struggle  began  for  control  of  the  organization 
of  both  houses.  In  the  House  an  attempt  made 
to  defeat  Cannon,  whom  Taft  had  in  the  cam 
paign  called  "An  old  man  of  the  Sea,"  was 
frustrated  through  the  influence  of  no  other 
person  than  Mr.  Taft  himself  --  and  to  the  dis 
may  of  every  one.  And  in  the  Senate,  in  spite 
of  opposition,  the  old  control,  with  Aldrich  as 
its  leader,  organized  all  the  committees. 

We  had  expected  that  Taft's  first  state  paper 


438  REINFORCEMENTS 

to  the  extra  session  which  he  had  called  would 
be  a  vigorous  demand  for  downward  revision 
of  the  tariff.  The  Senate  and  House  were 
crowded.  The  attention  was  keen  everywhere. 
The  clerk  began  to  read.  At  the  end  of  two 
minutes  he  stopped.  There  was  a  hush,— an 
expectation  that  he  would  resume.  But  he 
laid  aside  the  paper.  A  look  of  amazement  was 
on  every  face.  The  one  thing  emphasized  in 
the  President's  message  was  -the  importance  of 
disposing  of  the  tariff  as  early  as  possible  in 
order  that  business  might  not  be  long  disturbed 
by  uncertainties  regarding  customs  tariffs.  Not 
a  word  about  honest  revision  or  revision  down 
ward  ! 

But  the  Progressives  did  hot  then  lose  hope 
in  the  President.  We  believed  that  he  would 
still  carry  out  his  promises.  We  had  all  sup 
ported  him  heartily  in  his  campaign.  I  had 
been  the  candidate  of  the  state  of  Wisconsin  for 
the  Presidency  at  the  convention  which  nom 
inated  Taft,  and  while  I  had  no  expectation  of 
being  nominated,  I  did  hope  that  we  should  have 
some  influence  in  molding  the  platform.  When 


REINFORCEMENTS  439 

Taft  was  nominated,  I  immediately  sent  him 
the  following  telegram: 

"Ron.  WILLIAM  H.  TAFT, 

"Washington,  D.  C. 

"While  the  platform  is  disappointing  in  some 
fundamental  provisions  and  omissions,  and  I 
shall  claim  the  right  to  say  so,  I  congratulate 
you  most  sincerely,  and  in  the  faith  that  you  are 
more  nearly  in  accord  with  the  great  body  of 
Republican  voters  than  the  platform,  I  shall  do 
all  in  my  power  to  insure  your  election." 

When  the  tariff  bill  passed  the  House,  there 
fore,  after  being  bitterly  opposed  by  the  House 
insurgents  as  the  thoroughly  bad  measure  that 
it  W'as,  I  felt  at  liberty  to  call  upon  the  President 
and  talk  with  him  about  it.  I  still  had  hope 
that  he  wrould  keep  faith  with  the  people.  He 
agreed  with  me,  on  that  occasion,  that  the  bill 
as  it  passed  the  House  was  not  a  compliance 
with  platform  pledges,  and  he  said  distinctly 
that  unless  it  were  thoroughly  overhauled  he 
would  veto  it.  I  suggested  to  the  President 
that  it  was  plainly  his  duty  now  to  transmit  a 
message  to  Congress  making  it  clear  that  the 


440  REINFORCEMENTS 

House  bill  was  in  violation  of  the  pledges  of  the 
party  and  against  the  public  interests. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I  don't  much  believe  in  a 
President's  interfering  with  the  legislative  de 
partment  while  it  is  doing  its  work.  They  have 
their  responsibility  and  I  have  mine.  And  if 
they  send  that  bill  to  me,  and  it  isn't  a  better 
bill  than  it  is  now,  I  will  veto  it." 

I  suggested  that  if  he  remained  silent  he 
would  never  find  himself  able,  after  the  record 
was  made  up,  to  turn  about  and  fall  upon  Con 
gress  with  a  veto.  His  answer  came  quick  and 
strong. 

'You  and  your  associates  in  the  Senate  go 
ahead,  criticise  the  bill,  amend  it,  cut  down  the 
duties  —  go  after  it  hard.  I  will  keep  track  of 
your  amendments.  I  will  read  every  word  of 
the  speeches  you  make,  and  when  they  lay  that 
bill  down  before  me,  unless  it  complies  with  the 
platform,  I  will  veto  it." 

And  he  brought  his  fist  down  on  the  desk  with 
a  thump  to  emphasize  the  firmness  of  his  pur 
pose. 

"Very  well,"  I  said,  "Mr.  President,  but  I 


REINFORCEMENTS  441 

predict  that  when  it  passes  the  Senate  it  will  be 
a  far  worse  measure  than  it  is  now." 

"Well,"  he  retorted,  "I  will  show  you." 
Aldrich  kept  the  bill  in  possession  of  his 
committee  for  forty-eight  hours.  The  corridors 
about  his  committee  rooms  were  crowded  with 
the  representatives  of  the  big  protected  interests. 
Some  were  admitted  from  time  to  time  for  brief 
conferences.  When  Aldrich  reported  the  bill 
he  made  a  brief  oral  statement  devoted  solely  to 
an  estimate  of  the  revenues  which  would  be  pro 
duced  under  the  proposed  duties.  No  written  re 
port  accompanied  the  bill,  and  no  explanation, 
\vritten  or  oral,  was  placed  before  the  Senate, 
offering  any  reason  for  the  six  hundred  increases 
over  the  rates  fixed  in  the  House  bill.  Thereupon, 
Aldrich  demanded  immediate  consideration  of 
the  bill,  which  contained  three  hundred  pages, 
and  of  which  most  of  the  Senators  had  no  knowl 
edge  whatever.  He  was  preparing,  as  usual, 
to  drive  roughshod  over  all  opposition. 

I  was  not  altogether  unprepared  for  this  action 
on  the  Senator's  part,  and,  taking  the  floor,  I 
protested  against  the  present  consideration  of 


442  REINFORCEMENTS 

the  bill.  I  made  it  plain  that  never  before  in 
our  history  had  the  Senate  Committee  on 
Finance  failed  to  submit  with  a  tariff  bill  an 
extended  printed  report  setting  forth  the  argu 
ments  for  every  change  of  duty.  Furthermore, 
I  proved  from  the  record  that  it  had  been  the 
invariable  custom  of  the  Senate  committee  to 
place  the  tariff  bill  and  the  accompanying  report 
upon  the  desks  of  Senators,  with  a  notice  that 
the  bill  would  be  taken  up  some  two  to  six  weeks 
later,  giving  Senators  full  opportunity  to  fa 
miliarize  themselves  with  the  proposed  changes. 

No  answer  was  made  to  my  speech.  It  was 
manifestly  the  purpose  of  Senator  Aldrich  to 
allow  Senators  no  chance  to  prepare  in  advance 
to  resist  the  sort  of  tariff  legislation  which  the 
Payne- Aldrich  bill  provided.  And  in  further 
ance  of  this  plan,  as  the  consideration  of  the  bill 
advanced,  he  secured  the  adoption  of  an  order 
that  the  Senate  should  meet,  until  further  order, 
at  10  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  that  the  ses 
sions  should  continue  without  recess  or  adjourn 
ment  until  11  o'clock  at  night.  The  reason 
which  he  advanced  for  this  was  that  the  business 


REINFORCEMENTS  443 

interests  were  suffering  because  of  the  uncertain 
ties  regarding  the  tariff;  but  the  effect  of  this 
order  was  to  force  those  Senators  who  were 
conscientiously  investigating  schedules  either 
to  abandon  all  of  their  efforts  or  to  take  the 
course  pursued  by  our  little  group.  I  person 
ally  know  that  it  was  the  practice  of  a  number 
of  Progressives,  as  it  was  my  practice,  to  leave 
the  Senate  at  the  close  of  the  session  at  11  o'clock 
and,  reaching  home  at  midnight,  to  work  well 
into  the  small  hours  of  the  morning  over  the 
provisions  certain  to  be  reached  on  the  suc 
ceeding  day,  then  snatch  a  brief  rest  and  be 
ready  for  the  session  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morn 
ing.  This  work  continued  week  after  week  all 
through  the  hot  months  of  a  sultry  Washington 
summer.  It  was  taxing  to  the  last  degree,  and 
reduced  the  vitality  of  the  hardiest  members 
of  the  group.  I  shall  always  believe  that  the 
exactions  of  that  session  were  the  primary  cause 
of  Dolliver's  death  a  year  later. 

Two  of  the  members  of  the  group,  Senator 
Dolliver  and  myself,  had  been  members  of  the 
Ways  and  Means  Committee  of  the  House  of 


444  REINFORCEMENTS 

Representatives  and  had  taken  part  in  framing 
the  tariff  bills  in  other  sessions.  Senator  Dol- 
liver  performed  a  prodigious  amount  of  labor, 
particularly  upon  the  cotton  schedule,  followed 
by  one  of  the  most  "brilliant  speeches  of  his 
entire  public  career.  Senator  Bristow  devoted 
much  time  to  the  lead  and  sugar  Schedules; 
Senator  Cummins  nihde  special  preparation 
upon  .the  metal  schedule,  glass,  and  other  im 
portant  products  of  general  consumption.  He 
was  in  the  debate  day  by  day,  rendering  most 
excellent  public  service.  I  endeavored  to  ac 
quire  as  complete  a  knowledge  as  possible  of  the 
cotton  schedule,  the  woolen  schedule  and  impor 
tant  items  in  several  other  schedules  of  the  bill, 
which  I  presented  as  thoroughly  as  I  could. 

The  feature  of  the  work  done  by  the  insur 
gents  upon  the  bill  is  characteristic  of  the  Pro 
gressive  attitude  toward  all  matters  of  public 
\  interest  —  and  that  is  service  to  the  public  as 
against  special  interests^  It  is  incumbent  upon 
the  reformer  who  seeks  to  establish  a  new  order 
to  come  equipped  with  complete  mastery  of  all 
the  information  upon  which  the  established  order 


V 
REINFORCEMENTS  445 

is  based.  And  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the 
thoroughgoing,  uncompromising,  Progressive 
movement  is  essentially  a  safe  one  for  the  public 
and  for  all  legitimate  business. 

It  soon  became  apparent  as  we  got  into  the 
thickest  of  the  fight  that  the  lines  were  set  and 
the  combinations  effected  to  advance  instead 
of  reduce  tariff  duties.  Reductions  here  and 
there  in  no  way  beneficial  to  the  consuming 
public  were  made  with  a  view  to  offsetting  in  the 
general  average  advances  upon  many  of  the 
necessaries  of  life,  which  already  enjoyed  an 
excessive  protection  under  the  Dingley  law. 

The  bi-partisan  character  of  the  tariff  issue 
also  soon  developed.  In  any  case  where  the 
Progressive  attack  menaced  the  duty  on  any 
product,  Aldrich  as  a  rule  summoned  to  his 
support  a  sufficient  number  of  reactionary  Demo 
crats  to  prevent  breaking  his  lines. 

Mr.  Aldrich  soon  discovered  that  with  all  his 
experience  in  piloting  tariff  bills  through  Con 
gress  he  was  in  no  wise  equipped  to  meet  the 
opposition  of  the  Progressives.  And  after  a 
few  encounters,  when  either  of  the  three  or  four 


446  REINFORCEMENTS 

men  in  the  Progressive  group  took  the  floor  to 
attack  some  schedule,  Aldrich  would  beat  a 
hasty  retreat  from  the  floor  of  the  Senate  to 
escape  the  mortification  certain  to  follow  such 
encounters.  In  all  of  his  long  leadership  in  the 
Senate  on  all  questions,  tariff  or  otherwise,  it 
had  been  sufficient  for  Mr.  Aldrich  to  say,  "It 
is  so,"  or  "It  is  not  so,"  or  "It  is  necessary,"  or 
"It  is  not  necessary"  -but  a  new  day  had 
dawned.  The  insurgents  stood  in  the  pathway 
of  Mr.  Aldrich's  program  of  legislation  with 
searching  interrogatories  demanding  reasons  for 
all  things.  The  Senate  boss  was  thrown  into 
confusion.  He  had  been  accustomed  to  issue 
orders  —  not  furnish  reasons. 

The  consideration  of  the  tariff  bill  had  pro 
ceeded  but  a  little  way  when  it  became  certain 
that  no  important  changes  could  be  effected. 
But  that  did  not  deter  the  Progressives.  De 
feated  again  and  again,  they  returned  to  the 
attack.  It  was  a  splendid  exhibition  of  the  true 
spirit  of  moral  reform.  Defeat  was  a  matter  of 
no  consequence  to  them. 

The  great  service  rendered  by  the  Progressives 


REINFORCEMENTS  447 

in  the  extra  tariff  session  was  a  clean-cut, 
straightaway,  undeviating  fight  for  principle. 
The  extra  tariff  session  did  more  to  give  the 
Progressive  movement  a  clear  definition  in  the 
public  mind  than  any  one  thing  that  has  trans 
pired  in  Congress. 

There  were  ten  Republicans,  not  all  of  whom 
could  be  classed  as  Progressives,  who  voted 
against  the  bill  on  its  first  passage  through  the 
Senate:  Beveridgfc;  BristoW^Brown,^ Burkett, 
Clapp,  Crawford,  Cummins,  Dolliver,  Nelson 
and  myself.  The  bill  then  went  to  conference. 

While  most  of  the  Progressives  were  disap 
pointed  in  the  President's  attitude,  they  still 
hoped  that  he  might  do  something.  During 
the  debate,  in  appealing  to  the  Republican  side 
of  the  Senate  to  make  good  the  pledges  of  the 
Republican  platform,  I  had  quoted  President 
Taft  in  Milwaukee,  in  Des  Moines,  in  Kansas 
City,  interpreting  the  pledge  of  that  platform 
to  mean  downward  revision.  Other  Progres 
sives  made  reference  to  these  speeches  for  the 
same  reason.  We  felt  that  there  could  be  no 
gainsaying  his  position. 


448  REINFORCEMENTS 

While  the  bill  was  in  conference  I  took  the 
occasion  to  go  to  my  home  in  Wisconsin,  and 
called  at  the  WThite  House  to  pay  my  respects 
before  leaving.  The  President  said: 

"  Come  and  sit  down.  I  want  to  talk  with  you 
about  the  tariff.  What  am  I  to  do  with  this  bill?  " 

I  said,  "Mr.  President,  you  ought  to  veto  it. 
You  remember  you  said  you  would  unless  it  was 
a  better  bill  than  when  it  passed  the  House. 
Instead  of  being  a  better  bill,  it  is  much  worse. 
Hundreds  of  increases  have  been  made  in  the 
Senate." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "suppose  I  find  that  I  can't 
do  that.  What  changes  ought  I  to  insist  upon 
in  conference?" 

I  could  not  help  remembering  what  the  Presi 
dent  had  said  previously  about  his  being  opposed 
to  executive  interference  with  the  legislative 
department  of  government.  But  the  country 
was  all  wrought  up  and  the  President  had  throwrn 
his  scruples  to  the  winds.  Picking  up  a  pencil 
and  pad  of  paper,  he  said, 

"Tell  me  what  things  ought  to  be  reduced 
in  duty." 


REINFORCEMENTS  449 

He  wrote  as  I  talked  until  he  had  filled  the 
page  of  the  tablet.  Then,  laying  it  down,  he 
said, 

"Will  you  write  me  a  letter  stating  suc 
cinctly  the  things  that  you  think  ought  to  be 
done?" 

I  had  made  my  preparations  to  go  home,  but 
I  waited  over,  and  the  following  day  I  sent  to 
the  White  House  a  somewhat  lengthy  typewrit 
ten  document  giving  my  views.  I  started  out 
by  saying  that  I  thought  he  ought  to  veto 
the  bill,  but  that  if  he  decided  not  to  veto  it, 
it  ought  to  be  changed  in  certain  particulars 
which  I  outlined.  I  got  a  note  from  him  a  day 
or  two  after  I  reached  home  thanking  me  for 
that  letter. 

At  the  end  of  ten  days  the  conferees  reached 
an  agreement  and  reported  to  the  two  houses. 
The  final  test  came  on  the  adoption  of  the  con 
ference  report,  the  effect  of  which  would  be  to 
send  the  bill  to  the  President.  The  bill  was  not 
so  changed  in  conference  as  to  materially  alter 
its  character.  Mr.  Taft  had  failed  to  get  his 
stand-pat  friends  who  conducted  the  conference 


450  REINFORCEMENTS 

to  make  changes  that  really  amounted  to  any 
thing.  It  was  still  a  violation  of  the  platform 
pledges;  it  still  broke  faith  with  the  people. 
There  wrere  indeed  slight  modifications  in  duties 
on  lumber,  and  three  or  four  other  articles,  and 
upon  these  slight  changes  the  administration 
based  its  hope  of  securing  the  support  of  some 
of  the  Senators  and  Representatives  who  had 
voted  against  the  bill  before  it  went  to  confer 
ence.  There  was  a  basis  for  this  hope.  After 
making  a  record  in  the  House  or  the  Senate 
against  the  bill  to  present  to  his  constituents 
a  member  was  in  a  position  to  say  that  he  had 
done  his  best  to  improve  the  bill  and  that  he 
now  chose  to  vote  with  his  party  for  a  protec 
tive  measure,  though  it  were  too  radically  pro 
tective,  rather  than  vote  with  the  Democrats 
against  the  bill  reported  by  the  conference 
committee. 

Again  it  became  a  question  in  our  little  group 
as  to  how  many  would  stand  against  the  con 
ference  report  and  complete  a  record  of  con 
sistent  opposition  to  a  bill  that  represented  the 
consummation  of  privilege  more  reprehensible 


REINFORCEMENTS  451 

than  had  ever  before  found  a  place  upon  the 
statutes  of  the  country. 

I  recall  distinctly  the  efforts  put  forth  to 
break  our  lines.  Insurgents  were  irrvited  to  the 
White  House  to  meet  the  President,  and  others 
saw  him  from  time  to  time.  Among  these 
were  Dolliver,  Cummins  and  Beveridge.  I  re 
call  Dolliver's  comment: 

"Bob,"  he  said,  "I  was  invited  up  to  the 
White  House  to  a  tariff  breakfast."  And  then 
he  paused  and  looked  at  me  with  a  twinkle  in 
his  eye  and  added,  "The  muskmelon  he  served 
was  not  very  good." 

I  knew  that  Dolliver  had  not  changed. 
Neither  Bristow,  Clapp,  nor  I  was  invited  to 
sample  the  President's  breakfast  melons.  We 
were  regarded  as  hopelessly  lost  to  the  admin 
istration. 

The  conference  report  was  agreed  upon  dur 
ing  the  night,  and  the  stand-pat  papers  an 
nounced  that  the  changes  made  a  great  "moral 
victory"  for  President  Taft.  This  was  to  open 
the  door  for  the  "near"  insurgents  to  come 
back  to  the  party  and  vote  for  the  conference 


452  REINFORCEMENTS 

report.  One  not  experienced  in  the  life  of  the 
national  capital  can  hardly  conceive  the  tensity 
of  the  situation.  Party  loyalty  is  still  a  fetish 
in  Congress:  The  air  of  the  Senate  chamber  and 
cloak-rooms  was  charged  with  partisan  feeling. 
It  fairly  crackled. 

But  in  spite  of  all  this  pressure,  our  little 
group  held  together  wonderfully,  and  at  the 
final  vote  the  following  Republicans  cast  their 
ballots  against  the  bill:  Beveridge,  Bristow, 
Clapp,  Cummins,  Dolliver  and  myself.  Sena 
tor  Nelson,  who  cannot  be  classed  "as  a  Progres 
sive,  also  voted  against  the  bill. 

All  during  the  struggle  over  the  Payne-Aldrich 
bill  partisan  power  and  partisan  methods  were 
used  in  all  their  forms  to  force  the  Progressives 
into  line  upon  a  measure  which  they  knew  to  be 
bad.  The  insurgent  members  of  the  House, 
for  example,  were  made  apprehensive  about 
their  patronage.  A  great  many  of  their  post- 
office  appointments  were  delayed  —  and  a  little 
later  the  appointments  growing  out  of  the  taking 
of  the  new  census  became  a  critical  matter. 

One  night  nearly  all  of  the  Wisconsin  delega- 


HEINFORCEMENTS  453 

tion  came  up  to  my  residence.  They  were  very 
much  wrought  up.  They  had  discovered  that 
the  administration  was  discriminating  against 
the  Progressive  members  in  Wisconsin  and  in 
favor  of  Senator  Stephenson,  who  was  voting 
regularly  with  Aldrich.  Senator  Stephenson 
had  said  to  them  that  the  President  was  going 
to  allow  Mr.  E.  A.  Edmonds  to  name  the  super 
visors  of  census  in  all  the  districts  of  Wisconsin. 
Edmonds  was  chairman  of  the  State  Central 
Committee  of  Wisconsin  and  the  man  who  had 
managed  Stephenson' s  campaign  when  he  spent 
$107,000  in  the  primary  election.  They  said 
they  came  to  me  because  I  was  chairman  of 
the  Committee  on  Census  of  the  Senate,  and 
they  thought  that  I  might  ascertain  if  Mr. 
Taft  was  going  to  turn  over  all  the  patronage 
of  the  state  to  the  "stand-patters."  I  told 
them  that  such  an  action  as  this  was 
directly  contrary  to  what  he  had  said  to  me 
when  discussing  the  civil  service  features  of 
the  census  bill;  that  I  had  seen  him  about 
strengthening  those  sections  of  the  bill  and 
he  had  then  assured  me  that  the  census 


454  REINFORCEMENTS 

bureau  was  not  to  be  made  a  political 
machine.  I  told  the  delegation  that  if  it  would 
be  any  satisfaction  to  them  I  would  bring  the 
matter  to  the  President's  attention.  So  I  saw 
the  President  and  told  him  just  what  had  been 
reported.  He  looked  out  of  the  window  and 
said,  "It's  a  lie;  not  a  word  of  truth  in  it." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "may  I  say  to  them,  Mr. 
President,  that  they  can  file  their  recommenda 
tions  with  the  expectation  that  they  will  be 
treated  as  other  Republican  Congressmen  are 
treated?" 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I  can't  take  this  matter  up 
until  after  the  tariff  bill  is  passed." 

Then  I  knew  that  this  patronage  matter  was 
being  held  as  a  club  over  the  Progressives. 

When  the  tariff  bill  was  passed,  Mr.  Lenroot, 
Mr.  Nelson  and  Mr.  Gary,  Wisconsin  Republican 
members,  all  voted  against  it.  When  they  filed 
their  recommendations  before  leaving  Washing 
ton  for  supervisors  in  their  respective  districts 
they  were  promptly  turned  down  and  stand 
patters  recommended  by  Stephenson  and  Ed 
monds  appointed  in  their  places.  There  was 


REINFORCEMENTS  455 

one  Democratic  district  in  Wisconsin  where 
no  recommendation  had  been  made.  Doctor 
Durand  said  he  would  be  glad  to  have  me  make 
a  recommendation  for  that  district.  The  man 
I  suggested  was  promptly  turned  down,  and 
the  man  appointed  by  the  President  was  rec 
ommended  by  Mr.  Edmonds  arid  Senator 
Stephenson. 

Now  these  appointments  were  made  during 
the  recess,  and  their  nominations  all  had  to 
come  through  the  Senate  Committee  on  Census, 
of  which  I  was  chairman.  When  the  committee 
met  I  stated  exactly  what  the  President  had 
I  done  with  respect  to  supervisors  of  census  in 
\  Wisconsin.  Hale,  Carter,  and  a  number  of  mem 
bers  of  the  committee  said: 

;<  You  report  against  the  confirmation  of  those 
Wisconsin  supervisors,  and  every  member  of 
this  committee  and  the  whole  Senate  will  stand 
with  you.  Not  one  of  them  will  be  confirmed." 

But  I  saw  plainly  enough  that  I  was  going 
to  have  some  differences  with  the  administra 
tion  upon  important  legislative  matters  and  so 
I  resolved  to  report  these  nominations  for  con- 


456  REINFORCEMENTS 

firmation,  determined  that  my  differences  with 
the  administration,  if  any,  should  be  upon  mat 
ters  of  principle  and  not  be  obscured  by  squab 
bles  over  patronage. 

I  wish  to  refer  here  in  passing  to  another 
experience  I  had,  as  chairman  of  the  Census 
Committee,  with  the  President.  On  one  of  my 
visits  to  the  White  House  while  the  census  bill 
was  pending  I  called  the  President's  attention 
to  a  section  of  the  bill  that  provided  for  taking 
the  valuation  of  the  manufacturing  plants  of 
the  country.  I  said,  "Mr.  President,  I  have 
been  a  member  of  the  Senate  for  three  or  four 
years.  I  have  been  trying  to  secure  considera 
tion  of  an  amendment  to  the  Interstate  Com 
merce  Act  authorizing  the  commission  to  make 
a  valuation  of  the  railroads  of  the  country.  But 
as  the  committees  are  organized  in  the  Senate 
and  in  the  House  we  can't  get  a  bill  out  of  the 
committee.  Now  there  is  an  opportunity  here 
to  put  a  provision  into  the  census  bill  employing 
engineers  of  the  army  and  other  experts  under 
the  direction  of  the  Department  of  Commerce 
and  Labor  to  make  a  physical  valuation  of  the 


REINFORCEMENTS  457 

railroads,  and  I  am  very  strongly  tempted  to 
use  all  the  power  and  influence  I  have  as  chair 
man  of  that  committee  to  get  some  action  upon 
this  important  subject." 

"Senator  La  Follette,"  he  said,  "I  am  afraid 
that  will  delay  consideration  of  the  bill.  If  you 
will  not  do  that,  I  will  recommend  valuation 
strongly  in  my  message  next  fall;  I  will  put  the 
whole  influence  of  the  administration  behind 
your  proposition." 

I  said,  "Very  well,  Mr.  President.  I  will  act 
on  your  suggestion,  and  with  the  support  of  the 
administration  next  fall  we  will  have  a  good 
show  of  getting  some  action." 

He  did  not  recommend  the  legislation  in  his 
message.  Instead,  he  put  in  a  statement  that 
no  legislation  of  the  sort  was  necessary;  that 
the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  should 
proceed  under  the  law  just  as  it  was.  And  that 
was  the  end  of  the  valuation  of  railroad  property 
under  the  Taft  administration. 

It  was  acts  such  as  these,  together  with  his 
attitude  upon  the  tariff  question,  his  failure  to 
support  the  plain  pledges  of  the  party,  his  inter- 


458  REINFORCEMENTS 

ference  in  behalf  of  Cannon,  his  use  of  patron 
age  to  discipline  members,  his  alignment  with 
Aldrich  and  the  stand-patters  of  the  party, 
and  his  whole  course  in  the  Ballinger  affair, 
which  absolutely  alienated  the  Progressive 
group. 

One  of  the  most  important  measures  which 
has  come  before  the  Senate  since  I  became  a 
member  is  the  Aldrich  Emergency  Currency 
bill,  afterward  known  as  the  Aldrich-Vreeland 
Currency  bill.  In  some  ways  no  bill  ever  in 
troduced  in  Congress  was  more  significant  of 
the  control  of  legislation  by  great  financial 
interests.  This  bill  proposed  an  issue  of  $500,- 
000,000  of  additional  notes  to  national  banking 
associations,  such  issue  to  be  based  upon  state 
bonds,  municipal  bonds,  and  as  reported  by  the 
committee  and  advocated  by  Senator  Aldrich, 
railroad  bonds  as  well.  The  country  had  just 
gone  through  the  panic  of  1907  and  banks  and 
business  had  been  made  to  feel  the  pinch.  There 
was  a  plausible  reason  to  urge,  and,  indeed,  con 
sidering  the  character  of  our  currency  system 
and  the  imperfection  of  our  banking  laws,  a 


REINFORCEMENTS  459 

sound  reason,  for  making  provision  against  a 
sudden  withdrawal  of  the  money  necessary  for 
the  daily  exchanges  of  business,  whether  such 
contraction  was  due  to  the  fear  resulting  from  a 
panic  inaugurated  for  speculative  purposes  or 
otherwise.  For  even  a  managed  panic  may  be 
come  unmanageable,  and  in  any  event  legitimate 
commercial  enterprises  are  certain  to  suffer. 

But  there  were  reasons  back  of  the  emergency 
features  of  this  bill  more  important  vastly  to 
the  interests  than  those  prominently  urged.  It 
was  inevitable  that  the  years  of  stock-watering 
and  promotion,  the  inflation  of  railway  securi 
ties,  industrial  securities,  mining,  traction,  gas 
and  electricity,  should  bring  its  harvest  of 
financial  distress  and  reaction.  It  was  in 
evitable  that  the  crime  of  overcapitalization 
should  meet  its  punishment.  There  was  urgent 
demand  that  these  securities  should  be  restored 
to  public  confidence.  The  emergency  currency 
measure  offered  the  opportunity,  and  for  the 
first  time  in  history  it  was  proposed  that  rail 
road  bonds  should  be  wrought  into  our  monetary 
system  as  a  basis  for  currency  issue. 


460  REINFORCEMENTS 

To  secure  the  acceptance  of  railroad  bonds  as 
a  basis  for  even  an  emergency  currency  would 
accomplish  two  vitally  important  things  for 
the  special  interests:  First,  it  would  restore 
confidence  in  such  railroad  securities,  stocks  as 
well  as  bonds;  second,  it  would  avert  an  im 
pending  danger  to  such  securities,  which  had 
been  seriously  menaced  by  a  proposal  to  ascer 
tain  the  true  value  of  the  properties  of  the  rail 
roads,  against  which  stocks  and  bonds  had  been 
issued  without  limit. 

When  I  entered  the  Senate  in  1906,  as  before 
stated,  I  had  proposed  as  an  amendment  to  the 
Hepburn  rate  bill  a  provision  authorizing  and 
directing  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission 
to  make  such  valuation  as  a  basis  for  establish 
ing  reasonable  rates.  The  Senate  had  voted  down 
my  proposed  amendment. 

For  two  years  I  had  awaited  an  opportunity 
to  offer  my  amendment  providing  for  valuation 
to  any  measure  pending  before  the  Senate  to 
which  it  would  be  germane.  Apparently  it  had 
never  occurred  to  the  committee  reporting  the 
currency  bill  that  my  valuation  measure,  which 


REINFORCEMENTS  461 

had  been  bottled  up  in  the  Committee  on  Inter 
state  Commerce,  would  be  germane  as  an 
amendment  to  the  railroad  bond  provision  in  the 
currency  bill. 

This  opportunity  now  presented  itself  in 
connection  with  the  Emergency  Currency  bill. 
I  promptly  offered  an  amendment  providing 
that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  should  be 
authorized  to  accept  railroad  bonds  as  security 
for  the  emergency  currency  issue  only  after  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  had  ascertained 
the  value  of  the  physical  properties  of  the  railroads, 
upon  which  the  bonds  in  question  constituted  a 
first  mortgage;  and  provided  further  that  no 
such  railroad  bonds  should  be  accepted  unless 
the  value  of  the  property  of  the  railroad  com 
pany  were  found  to  be  ample  security  for  such 
bonds. 

The  offering  of  the  amendment  produced  a 
flutter  of  excitement.  Disgust  and  consterna 
tion  were  plainly  manifest.  For  two  years 
they  had  been  able  to  deny  me  a  vote  in  the 
Senate  on  the  valuation  of  railway  property 
and  the  reactionary  Senators  had  learned  to 


462  REINFORCEMENTS 

fear  being  placed  on  record  with  roll  calls.  And 
here  I  was  rudely  thrusting  this  troublesome 
proposition  upon  them  in  violation  of  all  the 
regulations  governing  "  senatorial  courtesy." 

I  had  announced  that  on  March  17th  I  would 
address  the  Senate  on  the  pending  bill,  and  in 
that  connection  would  oppose  the  railroad  bonds 
provision.  Thirty  minutes  before  I  was  to  be 
gin  my  argument  on  that  day  Senator  Aldrich 
arose  and  informed  the  Senate  that  he  was 
directed  by  the  Committee  on  Finance  to  with 
draw  from  the  bill  all  that  portion  of  it  relating 
to  railway  bonds ! 

But  if  it  was  Mr.  Aldrich's  purpose  to  avoid 
a  discussion  of  his  plan  to  make  railroad  bonds 
a  security  for  currency  issue  he  failed.  For  in 
opening  my  argument  I  referred  to  the  announce 
ment  of  Senator  Aldrich,  and  predicted  that  at 
some  later  stage  in  the  course  of  the  legislation 
that  same  provision  would  again  make  its  ap 
pearance  in  the  bill.  Therefore  I  covered  in 
my  argument  the  railroad  bonds  provision  and 
discussed  it  thoroughly.  I  presented  facts  to 
show  that  75  per  cent,  of  the  railroad  bonds 


REINFORCEMENTS  463 

which  would  be  affected  by  the  provision  were 
held  by  banks  in  New  England  and  eastern 
states,  and  only  25  per  cent,  distributed  through 
out  the  west,  middle  west,  and  south.  With 
its  highly  organized  banking  system  the  entire 
holdings  would  be  at  the  command  of  the  big 
group  banks.  In  the  course  of  my  argument  I 
was  also  able  to  demonstrate  that  the  legislation 
would  operate  to  place  the  money  trust  in  a 
position  to  control  for  their  own  advantage  any 
issue  of  emergency  currency. 

When  government  bonds  were  made  the 
basis  for  national  bank  issues,  it  was  avowedly 
for  the  purpose  of  enhancing  their  market  value. 
It  had  that  effect.  It  would  have  a  like  effect 
upon  railroad,  municipal  and  other  bonds.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  better  way 
to  boom  the  market  for  railroad  bonds  than  to 
put  behind  them  the  mandate  of  the  law  com 
pelling  national  banks  to  go  into  the  market  and 
bid  for  them.  Could  anything  be  conceived  by 
the  ingenuity  of  man  that  would  more  quickly 
enhance  the  price  of  railroad  bonds  held  by  a 
limited  number  of  speculative  banks  and  by  a 


464  REINFORCEMENTS 

few  capitalists,  or  better  promote  certain  great 
related  interests? 

In  the  course  of  my  speech  on  the  Emergency 
Currency  bill  I  showed  clearly  how  the  industrial 
and  banking  interests  are  closely  controlled  by  a 
small  group  of  financiers.  I  asserted  that  fewer 
than  one  hundred  men  control  the  great  business 
interests  of  the  country. 

The  following  day  the  great  newspapers  of  the 
country,  with  very  rare  exceptions,  denied  my 
statements  and  denounced  me  as  a  demagogue. 
The  Review  of  Reviews  editorially  characterized 
my  utterances  as  sensational  and  much  to  be 
regretted. 

A  few  days  later  I  replied  to  my  critics  and 
out  of  the  Directories  of  Directors  and  other 
record  data  proved  my  assertions,  and  demon 
strated  that  in  fact  less  than  a  dozen  men  control 
the  business  of  the  country  —  indeed,  that 
Standard  Oil  and  Morgan  are  the  real  business 
kings  of  America. 

In  a  way  the  public  had  understood  that  the 
railroads  had  consolidated  and  even  that  the 
great  manufacturing  corporations  of  the  country 


REINFORCEMENTS  465 

had  combined  to  control  production  and  prices. 
But  I  think  I  may  say  that  never  before  March, 
1908,  had  the  facts  been  brought  together  in  any 
discussion  in  Congress.  I  then  demonstrated 
through  an  analysis  of  the  directorates  of  Big 
Business  that  the  railroads,  telegraph,  shipping, 
street  car  and  interurban  lines,  cable,  telephone, 
express,  mining,  iron,  coal,  oil,  gas,  electric  light, 
manufacturing,  steel,  agricultural  implements, 
machinery  of  all  kinds,  cotton,  woolens,  tobacco, 
sugar,  and  the  food  products  are  completely 
controlled  and  mainly  owned  by  a  small  group 
of  men. 

I  was  very  much  interested  and  not  a  little 
gratified  a  few  weeks  ago  to  have  the  statements 
I  made  in  1908,  as  applied  to  the  control  of  capital 
and  credit,  corroborated  by  the  president  of  one 
of  the  largest  banks  in  the  United  States  - 
George  M.  Reynolds  of  the  Continental  and 
Commercial  Bank  of  Chicago.  On  the  13th  day 
of  December,  1911,  he  was  one  of  the  speakers 
at  the  somewhat  exclusive  banquet  held  under 
the  auspices  of  the  National  Business  League  of 
America.  I  might  add  parenthetically  that  this 


466  REINFORCEMENTS 

National  Business  League  of  America  is  an 
organization  that  is  behind  the  Aldrich  cur 
rency  scheme  and  this  meeting  was  held  in  Chi 
cago  primarily  to  advance  the  Aldrich  scheme, 
which  is  now  being  pressed  upon  the  attention 
of  Senators  and  members  of  the  House. 

It  was  a  company  of  bankers,  a  financial 
family  gathering,  as  it  were.  Mr.  Reynolds 
said: 

"I  believe  the  money  power  now  lies  in  the 
hands  of  a  dozen  men.  I  plead  guilty  to  being 
one,  in  the  last  analysis,  of  those  men." 

I  quote  this  from  page  296  of  the  official 
report  of  the  "  Proceedings  of  the  National  Busi 
ness  Congress."  A  limited  number  of  the  vol 
umes  giving  these  proceedings  were  issued, 
but,  since  Mr.  Reynolds'  overfrank  statement 
has  been  quoted  publicly,  I  am  informed  that 
the  reports  have  been  called  in  and  consigned  to 
deposit  vaults.  There  are  a  few,  however,  in 
the  hands  of  individuals  who  will  endeavor  to 
keep  alive  the  confessions  of  Mr.  Reynolds, 
speaking  as  one  of  the  twelve. 

The  withdrawal  of  the  railroad  bond  provision 


REINFORCEMENTS  467 

by  Mr.  Aldrich  before  I  began  my  speech  on  the 
currency  bill  prevented,  as  he  intended  it  should, 
any  plan  on  my  part  to  force  the  consideration 
of  railroad  valuation,  and  on  March  27,  1908, 
by  a  vote  of  42  to  16  the  bill  passed  the  Senate. 
The  only  Republicans  who  voted  against  it  were 
Borah,  Bourne,  Brown,  and  La  Follette. 

In  the  House  the  Vreeland  bill  was  sub 
stituted  for  the  Aldrich  bill  and  the  whole  matter 
was  finally  thrown  into  conference.  At  an  early 
meeting  the  conference  committee  announced 
that  an  agreement  between  the  two  houses  was 
utterly  impossible  and  that  therefore  no  bill 
could  be  passed. 

I  did  not  place  as  great  reliance  as  others  upon 
the  statement  issued.  I  could  not  believe  that 
the  interests  would  permit  the  session  to  close 
without  another  effort  to  carry  out  their  plans, 
but  Congress  and  the  country  generally  accepted 
the  statement  with  expressions  of  general  satis 
faction  that  the  whole  matter  should  go  over  to 
a  later  period,  when  something  of  substantial 
merit  might  be  secured. 

For  many  weeks  not  a  word  was  heard  from 
t 


468  REINFORCEMENTS 

this  committee  on  conference,  and  then  suddenly 
on  May  27th,  three  days  before  adjournment, 
this  measure  of  vital  importance  was  thrust  upon 
the  consideration  of  Congress  in  the  form  of  a 
conference  report,  which  might  be  debated 
but  could  not  be  amended  in  any  respect.  Upon 
examining  the  measure  it  was  clearly  apparent 
that  the  bill  was  in  no  respect  better  than  the 
bill  which  had  passed  the  Senate,  and  in  many 
particulars  it  was  infinitely  worse. 

As  I  had  predicted,  the  railroad  bonds  pro 
vision  had  been  restored  to  the  bill,  but  buried 
under  an  obscure  phrase.  The  bill  also  con 
tained  an  infamous  provision  which  permitted 
the  use  of  bonds  as  security  for  currency  at  less 
than  par  value. 

I  determined  to  resist  its  passage  with  all  my 
strength.  I  felt  assured  that  with  the  assistance 
of  three  or  four  other  Senators  I  could  protract 
the  discussion  until  the  rankly  objectionable 
features  of  the  measure  would  elicit  such  a 
protest  from  independent  bankers  and  business 
men  of  the  country  as  would  compel  Congress 
radically  to  amend  or  to  defeat  it.  I  sought  for 


REINFORCEMENTS  469 

help*  among  the  few  recently  elected  Republican 
Senators,  but  found  them  timid  about  joining 
me  in  the  undertaking.  I  then  resolved  to  make 
the  best  opposition  I  could  to  the  measure  and 
extend  the  debate  in  the  hope  that  some  Demo 
cratic  Senator  or  Senators  might  later  come  to 
my  assistance. 

Before  the  conference  report  was  called  up 
for  action  in  the  Senate  I  was  assured  by 
Senators  Gore  and  Stone  that  one  or  the  other 
of  them  would  take  the  floor  when  I  concluded, 
Stone  saying  that  he  would  speak  for  five  or 
six  hours  against  the  bill  and  Gore  agreeing  to 
follow  Stone  for  at  least  two  hours.  The  con 
ference  report  having  been  called  up  shortly 
before  12  o'clock  on  the  29th  of  May,  I  very 
soon  thereafter  obtained  the  floor  and  began  my 
discussion  of  its  most  objectionable  provisions, 
which  I  continued  for  the  balance  of  the  after 
noon,  throughout  the  night  and  until  7  o'clock  on 
the  morning  of  the  30th  of  May,  having  spoken 
nineteen  hours  without  surrendering  the  floor. 

It  was  not  expected  that  I  would  be  able  to 
hold  the  floor  for  more  than  a  few  hours  at  most, 


470  REINFORCEMENTS 

but  as  the  afternoon  wore  away,  and  I  con 
tinued  speaking  past  the  usual  adjourning  time, 
there  were  manifestations  of  some  uneasiness 
on  the  part  of  the  chairman  of  the  Finance 
Committee  and  his  more  immediate  supporters. 

The  newspaper  dispatches  carried  the  infor 
mation  to  the  country  that  a  fight  was  on  against 
the  Emergency  Currency  conference  report, 
and  by  midnight  telegrams  began  to  come  to 
Senators  from  independent  bankers,  and  business 
men  asking  them  to  support  me  in  my  opposi 
tion  to  the  measure. 

But  bills  had  been  held  back  by  the  Senate 
managers  of  legislation  to  serve  as  guards  to  this 
conference  report.  One  of  these  measures  was 
the  great  public  buildings  "pork  barrel"  bill  car 
rying  appropriations  in  which  many  Senators  felt 
deeply  interested.  Senators  who  would  natur 
ally  be  in  sympathy  with  my  fight  were  warned 
that  if  they  aided  me  the  public  buildings  bill 
would  be  permitted  to  fail  at  that  session. 

Another  measure  used  as  a  club  to  beat  off 
the  aid  of  a  number  of  Southern  Senators  who 
were  strongly  opposed  to  the  Emergency  Cur- 


REINFORCEMENTS  471 

rency  bill  was  a  measure,  then  pending,  to  cut 
down  the  number  of  representatives  in  the  House 
from  the  southern  states. 

But  I  got  on  fairly  well  with  my  single-handed 
opposition.  The  interest  was  very  great.  Scores 
of  representatives  came  over  from  the  House, 
and  the  galleries  were  crowded. 

When  I  first  took  the  floor  Aldrich,  Hale,  and 
the  other  managers  of  Senate  business  were 
inclined  to  chaff  me,  but,  after  I  had  been  speak 
ing  for  some  time,  they  grew  impatient.  I 
noticed  that  they  had  their  heads  together  and 
before  long  it  was  whispered  to  me  by  a  friendly 
Senator  that  I  would  have  to  be  on  my  guard  if 
I  kept  the  floor,  as  they  proposed  to  get  me  to 
yield  to  some  interruption,  and  then  have  the 
presiding  officer  recognize  the  interrupting  Sen 
ator  as  having  the  floor  in  his  own  right,  thus 
compelling  me  if  I  desired  to  go  on  again  to 
secure  a  fresh  recognition  from  the  Chair,  which 
would  be  held  to  be  my  second  recognition  upon 
the  same  question  upon  the  same  legislative  day. 
As  Mr.  Aldrich  intended  to  keep  the  Senate  in 
continuous  session  until  the  conference  report 


472  REINFORCEMENTS 

was  adopted,  the  legislative  day  might  continue 
indefinitely.  I  would  then  be  placed  in  a  posi 
tion  where,  when  I  yielded  the  floor  to  procure 
rest  and  refreshment,  I  could  not  be  recognized, 
as  this  would  be  in  violation  of  one  of  the  stand 
ing  rules  of  the  Senate.  The  rule  in  question 
provides  that  no  Senator  shall  speak  more  than 
twice  upon  any  one  question  in  debate  upon  the 
same  day.  This  rule  is  never  enforced,  but  it 
was  proposed  to  enforce  it  against  me. 

Senator  Hale  addressed  the  Chair  as  follows: 

"Mr.  President  - 

"The  Vice-President.  Does  the  Senator  from 
Wisconsin  yield  to  the  Senator  from  Maine? 

"Mr.  La  Toilette.  I  yield  to  the  Senator 
from  Maine. 

"Mr.  Hale.  I  do  not  ask  the  Senator  to  yield. 
The  Senator  yielded  the  floor,  and  I  secured  the 
recognition  of  the  Vice-President." 

This  was  not  in  accordance  with  the  fact. 
Senator  Hale  had  not  secured  recognition  of  the 
Vice-President  which  entitled  him  to  the  floor 
in  his  own  right. 

I  was  surprised  on  the  following  morning  to 


REINFORCEMENTS  473 

find  that  the  Congressional  Record  as  printed 
changed  the  form  of  the  Vice-President's  rec 
ognition.  As  it  appeared  in  the  Record  the 
next  morning  it  was  as  follows: 

"  Mr.  Hale.     Mr.  President  — 

"The  Vice-President.  The  Senator  from 
Maine." 

Thus  it  was  made  to  appear  from  the  Record 
that  the  Senator  from  Maine  was  recognized  as 
having  the  right  to  the  floor,  and  not  as  having 
the  floor  yielded  to  him  by  me.  On  procuring 
the  official  shorthand  report  of  the  proceedings, 
I  found  it  had  been  "doctored,"  and  I  caused  a 
photograph  to  be  made  for  future  use.  Thus 
the  foundation  was  laid  by  altering  the  Record 
to  have  me  barred  from  the  floor  when  I  yielded 
it  again. 

Having  held  the  floor  for  nineteen  hours,  I 
surrendered  to  Senator  Stone  of  Missouri,  who 
had  come  to  my  assistance.  He  was  relieved 
after  occupying  the  floor  for  six  or  seven  hoursSx 
by  Senator  Gore,  who  spoke  for  two  hours.  It 
was  the  understanding  that  Senator  Stone  would 
follow  Senator  Gore  for  an  hour,  at  which  time 


474  REINFORCEMENTS 

I  would  again  take  the  floor.  We  intended  to 
continue  the  "filibuster"  until  the  leaders  should 
give  in. 

I  was  in  my  committee  room  arranging 
material  for  use  when  I  was  hurriedly  summoned 
to  the  Senate  floor  with  the  information  that 
the  debate  had  been  closed.  The  roll  call  was 
in  progress  when  I  reached  the  floor,  and  it  was 
therefore  impossible  for  me  to  attempt  to  secure 
recognition  and  continue  the  fight.  It  seems 
that  Senator  Stone  was  not  in  the  chamber  when 
the  blind  Senator  Gore,  supposing  that  Stone 
was  present  according  to  previous  arrangement, 
yielded.  There  being  no  one  at  hand  to  ask 
recognition  in  opposition  to  the  conference 
report,  the  call  of  the  roll  began  at  once,  and 
the  fight  was  over.  The  conference  report 
was  adopted  by  a  vote  of  43  to  22.  The  debate 
had  at  least  exposed  the  character  of  the  con 
ference  report  and  the  methods  employed  by 
the  masters  of  legislation  for  enforcing  it  upon 
the  country.  It  added  another  chapter  to  the 
record  of  the  subserviency  of  Congress  to  special 
interests. 


REINFORCEMENTS  475 

It  is  my  settled  belief  that  this  great  power 
over  government  legislation  can  only  be  over 
thrown  by  resisting  at  every  step,  seizing  upon 
every  important  occasion  which  offers  oppor 
tunity  to  uncover  the  methods  of  the  system. 
It  matters  little  whether  the  particular  question 
at  issue  is  the  tariff,  the  railroads,  or  the  cur 
rency.  The  fight  is  the  same.  It  is  not  a  ques 
tion  of  party  politics.  The  great  issue  strikes 
down  to  the  very  foundation  of  our  free  insti 
tutions.  It  is  against  the  system  built  up  by 
privilege,  which  has  taken  possession  of  govern 
ment  and  legislation,  that  we  must  make  un 
ceasing  warfare. 

It  was  in  this  Emergency  Currency  bill  that 
Aldrich  laid  the  foundation  for  the  upbuilding 
of  his  scheme,  which  is  now  backed  by  powerful 
financial  and  business  interests  to  secure  stronger 
control  upon  the  capital  and  credit  of  our  coun 
try.  This  has  now  crystallized  in  the  so-called 
Aldrich  currency  plan,  a  measure  which  the 
interests  will  take  the  first  available  opportunity 
to  force  upon  Congress. 


CHAPTER  XI 

WHY  I  BECAME  A  CANDIDATE  FOR  THE  PRESI 
DENCY  — TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  - — A  COMPLETE 
HISTORY  OF  ROOSEVELT'S  COURSE  AFTER  HIS 
RETURN  FROM  AFRICA  —  FORMATION  OF  THE 
ORGANIZED  PROGRESSIVE  MOVEMENT  —  PRES 
SURE  FOR  A  REAL  PROGRESSIVE  CANDIDATE 

BY  THE  close  of  the  extra  session  con 
vened  on  the  fifteenth  of  March,  1909, 
President  Taft's  course  upon  the  tariff 
legislation  had  raised,  in  the  mind  of  every  real 
Progressive,  doubts  as  to  his  availability  as  a 
candidate  to  succeed  himself.  In  his  campaign 
for  election  he  had  interpreted  the  platform 
as  a  pledge  for  tariff  revision  downward. 
Five  months  after  he  was  inaugurated  he 
signed  a  bill  that  revised  the  tariff  upward. 
And  the  tariff  protected  trust  beneficiaries, 
availing  themselves  of  their  increased 

476 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  477 

rates,  promptly  advanced  prices  to  the  con 
sumer. 

The  President  started  on  a  tour  across  the 
country  in  September,  1909.  At  the  outset  in 
an  address  at  Boston  he  lauded  Aldrich  as  the 
greatest  statesman  of  his  time.  Then  followed 
his  Winona  speech  in  which  he  declared  the 
Payne-Aldrich  Bill  to  be  the  best  tariff  bill  ever 
enacted,  and  in  effect  challenged  the  Progres 
sives  in  Congress  who  had  voted  against 
the  measure,  and  the  progressive  judgment  of 
the  country,  which  had  already  condemned  it. 

During  the  succeeding  sessions  of  Congress 
President  Taft's  sponsorship  for  the  adminis 
tration  railroad  bill,  with  its  commerce  court, 
its  repeal  of  the  anti-trust  act  in  its  applica 
tion  to  railroads,  and  its  legalizing  of  all  watered 
railroad  capitalization;  his  course  regarding 
Ballinger  and  the  Cunningham  claims,  and  the 
subterfuges  resorted  to  by  his  administration  in 
defence  of  Ballinger;  his  attempt  to  foist  upon 
the  country  a  sham  reciprocity  measure;  his  com 
plete  surrender  to  the  legislative  reactionary  pro 
gram  of  Aldrich  and  Cannon  and  the  discredited 


478  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

representatives  of  special  interests  who  had  so 
long  managed  congressional  legislation,  rendered 
it  utterly  impossible  for  the  Progressive  Republi 
cans  of  the  country  to  support  him  for  reelection. 
Former  President  Roosevelt,  after  the  expira 
tion  of  his  term  of  office,  absented  himself  from 
the  country  for  a  period  of  about  fifteen  months. 
It  was  during  this  interval  that  the  Progressive 
movement  made  its  greatest  progress  nationally. 
The  reason  for  this  is  obvious.  Taft's  openly 
reactionary  course  on  legislation  during  the  first 
two  sessions  of  Congress  following  his  inaugura 
tion  welded  together  the  Progressive  strength  of 
the  country,  and  sharpened  and  clearly  defined 
the  issues.  While  Roosevelt  was  President,  his 
public  utterances  through  state  papers,  ad 
dresses,  and  the  press  were  highly  colored  with 
rhetorical  radicalism.  His  administrative  poli 
cies  as  set  forth  in  his  recommendations  to 
Congress  were  vigorously  and  picturesquely 
presented,  but  characterized  by  an  absence  of 
definite  economic  conception.  One  trait  was 
always  pronounced.  His  most  savage  assault 
upon  special  interests  was  invariably  offset  with 


*  ^ 

*   ^ 


X 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  479 

an  equally  drastic  attack  upon  those  who  were 
seeking  to  reform  abuses.  These  were  indis 
criminately  classed  as  demagogues  and  dan 
gerous  persons.  In  this  way  he  sought  to  win 
approval,  both  from  the  radicals  and  the 
conservatives.  This  cannonading,  first  in  one 
direction  and  then  in  another,  filled  the  air  with 
noise  and  smoke,  which  confused  and  obscured 
the  line  of  action,  but,  when  the  battle  cloud 
drifted  by  and  quiet  was  restored,  it  was  always 
a  matter  of  surprise  that  so  little  had  really  been 
accomplished.  Roosevelt  is  deserving  of  credit 
for  his  appeals  made  from  time  to  time  for 
higher  ethical  standards,  social  decency,  and 
civic  honesty.  He  discussed  these  matters 
strikingly  and  with  vigor,  investing  every  utter 
ance  with  his  unique  personality.  He  would 
seize  upon  some  ancient  and  accepted  precept 
—  as,  "Honesty  is  the  best  policy" — and  treat  it 
with  a  spirit  and  energy  and  in  a  manner  that 
made  him  seem  almost  the  original  discoverer 
of  the  truth.  He  often  confessed,  however,  a 
distaste  for  and  lack  of  interest  in  economic 
problems,  and  his  want  of  definite  conception 


480  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

always  invited  to  compromise,  retarding  or 
defeating  real  progress. 

It  was  not  strange,  therefore,  that  he  approved 
the  Hepburn  Rate  Bill,  and  claimed  it  as  an 
achievement  for  his  administration.  For  nine 
years  the  public  had  demanded  relief  from  Con 
gress  that  would  restore  to  the  Interstate  Com 
merce  Commission  some  measure  of  the  power 
of  which  it  had  been  deprived  by  a  Supreme 
Court  decision  in  1897.  And,  finally,  the  Hep 
burn  Bill  was  enacted  as  a  pretended  compliance 
with  that  public  demand.  Except  for  section 
twenty,  which  authorized  the  Commission  to 
enforce  upon  the  railroads  a  uniform  system  of 
bookkeeping,  the  bill  omitted  every  provision 
which  the  Commission  had  for  nine  years  urged 
upon  Congress  as  necessary  to  make  the  Inter 
state  Commerce  Law  a  workable  statute  for  the 
protection  of  the  public  interest. 

Nor  was  it  strange  that  he  approved  the 
Emergency  Currency  Law  —  which  was  but 
another  ragged  patch  upon  our  makeshift  mone 
tary  system,  placed  there  through  the  powerful 
influence  of  the  speculative  banking  interests 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  481 

—  and  commended  it  as  a  "wholesome  progres 
sive  law." 

It  was  for  these  reasons  that,  after  a  service 
of  seven  and  one  half  years  as  President  of  the 
United  States,  he  left  no  great  constructive 
statute  as  an  enduring  record  of  his  service. 
To  the  credit  of  his  administration  may  justly 
be  placed,  however,  in  large  measure  the  more 
recent  progress  of  the  conservation  movement. 
But  conservation  did  not  originate  with  thev/ 
Roosevelt  administration.  The  Forestry  Bureau 
in  the  Department  of  Agriculture  was  estab 
lished  as  a  result  of  a  memorial  presented  by 
the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement 
of  Science  in  1873,  reinforced  by  another  memo 
rial  of  the  Association  in  1890.  The  first 
national  forest  reservation  was  established  in 
1891.  This  was  the  beginning  of  conservation, 
which  was  further  promoted  by  a  more  elabo 
rate  treatment  of  the  subject  by  the  National 
Academy  of  Sciences  in  1897.  Through  the 
publication  of  a  volume  entitled  "Lands  of 
the  Arid  West,"  by  Major  J.  W.  Powell, 
Director  of  the  Geological  Survey,  and  as 


482  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

a  result  of  the  foresight  and  influence  of 
Director  Powell,  an  irrigation  division  of  the 
United  States  Geological  Survey  was  estab 
lished  in  1888,  and  authority  conferred  upon 
the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  to  withdraw  from 
private  entry  reservoir  sites  and  areas  of  land 
necessary  for  irrigation  purposes.  From  this 
time  on  the  growth  of  conservation  as  a  govern 
mental  policy  was  commensurate  to  its  great 
importance  to  the  public.  In  response  to  the 
steadily  growing  demands,  numerous  withdraw 
als  of  public  lands  from  private  sale  or  entry,  for 
the  protection  of  forests,  fuel  supply,  irrigation, 
and  waterpowers,  were  made  during  the  Roose 
velt  administration.  In  this  department  of  the 
public  service  Roosevelt  made  a  distinctly  pro 
gressive  record,  due  in  large  degree  to  the 
zeal  and  activity  of  Chief  Forester  Pinchot. 
The  enthusiasm  of  the  Chief  Forester  which  led 
him  to  include  within  forest  reserves  extended 
areas  of  purely  agricultural  lands,  thus  retarding 
agricultural  development  in  some  of  the  western 
states,  naturally  caused  bitterness  and  hostility 
to  the  whole  movement  on  the  part  of  many  peo- 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  483 

pie  in  those  states  whose  prosperity  depended 
chiefly  upon  the  development  of  their  agricul 
tural  lands,  This  resulted  in  building  up  the 
only  well-grounded  opposition  to  conservation 
progress.  While  injustice  was  done  in  many 
cases,  the  administration  of  the  forestry  service 
has  been  one  of  incalculable  benefit  to  the  public 
as  a  whole. 

But  the  fact  remains  that  the  Roosevelt  admin 
istration  came  to  a  close  on  the  fourth  of  March, 
1909,  without  leaving  to  its  credit  a  definite 
Progressive  national  movement  with  a  clearly  de 
fined  body  of  issues.  There  was  the  comprehen 
sive  and  well  recognized  Progressive  movement 
in  Wisconsin.  A  good  beginning  had  been  made 
in  a  number  of  other  states,  and  for  three  years  I 
I  had  labored  in  the  Senate,  making  some  gain 
against  a  solid  opposition,  but  wholly  unable  to 
rely  on  the  administration  of  President  Roosevelt 
for  support  or  cooperation. 

On  the  twenty-fourth  of  March,  1909,  Roose 
velt  sailed  for  Africa.  He  was  absent  from  the 
country  until  June,  1910.  In  that  period,  undc 
the  administration  of  President  Taft,  the  Pro- 


484  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

gressive  Republican  movement  made  greater 
headway  than  during  the  entire  Roosevelt 
administration.  This  was  largely  due  to  the 
fact  that  Taft's  course  was  more  direct,  Roose 
velt's  devious.  Openly  denouncing  trusts  and 
combinations,  Roosevelt  made  concessions  and 
compromises  which  tremendously  strengthened 
these  special  interests.  Thus  he  smeared  the 
issue,  but  caught  the  imagination  of  the  younger 
men  of  the  country  by  his  dash  and  mock  heroics. 
Taft  cooperated  with  Cannon  and  Aldrich  on 
legislation.  Roosevelt  cooperated  with  Aldrich 
and  Cannon  on  legislation.  Neither  President 
took  issue  with  the  reactionary  bosses  of  the 
Senate  upon  any  legislation  of  national  impor 
tance.  Taft's  talk  was  generally  in  line  with 
his  legislative  policy.  Roosevelt's  talk  was  gen 
erally  at  right-angles  to  his  legislative  policy. 
Taft's  messages  were  the  more  directly  reaction 
ary;  Roosevelt's  the  more  "progressive."  But 
adhering  to  his  conception  of  a  "square  deal,"  his 
strongest  declarations  in  the  public  interest  were 
invariably  offset  with  something  comforting  for 
Privilege;  every  phrase  denouncing  "bad"  trusts 


J 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  485 

was   deftly  balanced   with   praise   for   "good" 
trusts. 

So  uncertain  were  the  Progressive  leaders  in 
the  Senate  and  House  as  to  the  position  which 
Roosevelt  would  take  upon  progressive  issues 
after  his  return  from  Africa  that  it  was  almost 
daily  a  matter  of  discussion  among  them. 
Would  he  ally  himself  with  Taft  or  would  he 
stand  with  the  Progressive  movement,  which 
had  by  that  time  become  a  concrete  and  well 
understood  political  entity?  Indeed,  so  uncer 
tain  were  even  his  close  personal  friends,  some 
of  whom  had  fallen  out  with  the  administration, 
that  they  were  anxious  to  get  his  ear  first  as  he 
turned  his  face  homeward,  in  order  to  forestall, 
if  possible,  any  announcement  from  him  favor 
able  to  the  Taft  administration.  To  that  end 
Gifford  Pinchot,  who  had  been  removed  by 
Taft  from  his  position  of  Chief  Forester  - 
and  had  become  an  active  Progressive  —  as 
early  as  December  31,  1909,  had  written  an 
extended  letter  to  Roosevelt  which  would 
meet  him  at  the  African  border,  and  give  his 
mind  the  right  slant  on  the  political  situation. 


I 


486  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

Pinchot  followed  his  letter  abroad,  to  supple 
ment  it  with  verbal  explanation  and  personal 
persuasion.  A  throng  of  American  newspaper 
correspondents  crossed  the  ocean  to  get  some 
word  from  Roosevelt  which  could  be  cabled  back 
to  enlighten  the  people  on  the  momentous  ques 
tion  as  to  whether  Roosevelt,  when  he  finally 
landed  in  America,  would  ally  himself  with  the 
Progressives  or  with  the  Taft  administration. 
Their  diligence  and  ingenuity  were  rewarded 
with  no  syllable  to  indicate  his  course.  He 
landed  in  New  York,  June  18th,  and  for  weeks 
the  daily  press  teemed  with  questioning  and 
speculation.  But  still  the  American  public 
was  left  in  ignorance  as  to  the  future  action  of 
the  former  President.  At  the  capital  of  the 
nation  and  throughout  the  country  the  line 
of  battle  had  been  drawn,  and  there  was  no 
faltering  on  either  side.  Every  citizen  pos 
sessed  of  any  conviction,  had  taken  his  stand 
long  before,  and  the  contest  was  on  in  every 
state. 

The  extra  session  of  1909  on   the  tariff  had 
been  followed  by  the  regular  session  of  1909-10, 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  487 

in  which  the  Progressives  had  torn  to  pieces  the 
administration  railroad  bill,  and  written  the 
measure  almost  entirely  anew,  on  the  floor  of  the 
Senate.  The  tariff  session  had  rent  asunder  the 
Republican  party.  Quarter  was  neither  sought 
nor  given  between  the  progressive  and  stand- 
pat  forces.  The  session  of  1910,  preceding 
the  congressional  elections,  had  intensi 
fied  the  differences,  widened  the  breach; 
and  still  the  former  President  had  noth 
ing  to  say.  He  had  been  received  with 
great  acclaim  in  the  old  world,  and  like 
wise  upon  his  arrival  in  New  York.  It  was  a 
time  in  the  life  of  the  Progressive  move 
ment  when  his  support  would  have  been  a 
tremendous  gain. 

Upon  the  twenty-seventh  of  June,  1910,  on 
invitation  which  came  to  me  through  Gilson 
Gardner,  close  personal  friend  of  Roosevelt, 
and  Washington  correspondent  of  the  Scripps 
papers,  I  visited  him  at  Oyster  Bay.  A  colored 
attendant  showed  me  into  the  library,  and  in 
formed  me  that  the  Colonel  would  see  me  pres 
ently.  He  soon  made  his  appearance,  wearing 


488  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

linen  knickerbockers,  and  after  a  cordial  greeting 
said  that  he  had  just  come  in  from  pitching  hay, 
confirming  his  statement  by  removing  a  rather 
liberal  quantity  of  timothy  from  his  person.  He 
asked  me  about  the  work  of  Congress  and  the 
new  administration,  and  I  told  him  definitely 
of  the  tariff  and  railroad  legislation,  and  of  the 
great  advance  which  the  Progressive  movement 
had  really  made.  I  asked  some  direct  questions, 
both  regarding  issues  and  President  Taft,  but 
excepting  as  to  one  matter  he  was  very  guarded 
in  his  statements. 

Speaking  of  the  initiative  and  referendum, 
he  said  he  had  arrived  at  no  settled  con 
viction;  but  upon  the  recall  his  mind  was 
definitely  made  up,  at  least  in  so  far  as  it  related 
to  the  recall  of  judges.  He  said:  "I  arn  not 
sure  whether  the  recall  should  be  applied  to 
public  officials  generally,  but  I  have  been  so 
disappointed  in  many  of  the  judges  commissioned 
during  my  administration,  that  it  is  perfectly 
clear  to  me  that  the  recall  should  be  established 
and  enforced  as  to  judges,  and  particularly, 
federal  judges  appointed  for  life."  I  received 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  489 

the  statement  with  some  expression  of  surprise, 
suggesting  as  my  viewpoint  that  if  the  recall 
were  applied  to  the  judiciary,  the  percentage  of 
petitioners  demanding  recall  should  be  fixed  at  a 
much  higher  rate  than  was  commonly  accepted 
as  proper  basis  for  recall  of  legislative  and  other 
public  officials.  He  replied  that  he  had  given 
no  particular  thought  to  the  details,  biif  that 
he  had  a  settled  and  fixed  opinion  as  to  the 
importance  of  applying  the  principle  to  the  fed 
eral  judiciary.  At  the  close  of  the  interview 
I  left  with  him  some  speeches  bearing  upon  the 
tariff  and  railroad  bills  which  he  said  he  would 
read  with  care.  I  told  him  very  explicitly 
of  Taft's  course  upon  the  tariff,  of  his 
Winona  speech,  in  which  he  declared  the 
Payne-Aldrich  Bill  the  best  bill  ever  enacted 
by  a  Republican  Congress.  His  only  com 
ment  upon  Taft  was  that  "sometimes  a 
man  makes  a  very  good  lieutenant  but  a 
poor  captain." 

I  was  not  a  little  surprised  to  find,  less  than 
three  months  later,  a  Roosevelt  editorial  in  the 
Outlook,  under  date  of  September  17,  1910,  in 


490  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

which  he  commented  upon  the  Payne-Aldrich 
Tariff  Law  as  follows : 

"I  think  that  the  present  tariff  is  better  than 
le  last,  and  considerably  better  than  the  one 
before  the  last." 

Neither  the  foregoing  statement,  nor  anything 
akin  to  it,  however,  was  made  in  Roosevelt's 
speeches  upon  his  tour  in  the  months  of  August 
and  early  September  in  the  west,  where  public 
sentiment  was  very  pronouncedly  against  the 
Payne-Aldrich  Tariff  Law.  The  Outlook  edi 
torial  above  quoted  was  a  portion  of  a  more  ex 
tended  reference  to  the  tariff  in  the  speech  which 
he  had  prepared  for  his  trip  through  the  west. 
Obviously  he  left  a  copy  of  his  tariff  views  with 
the  Outlook  before  leaving  for  his  western  tour. 
The  reason  why  the  portion  quoted  above  and 
published  as  a  Roosevelt  editorial  was  not  deliv 
ered  as  a  part  of  any  of  his  addresses  on  the  tariff 
in  the  west  was  due  to  the  fact  that  one  of  the 
Progressive  Senators  who  rode  with  him  on  his 
special  train  during  part  of  the  trip,  and  to 
whom  he  submitted  the  speech  which  he  pro- 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  491 

posed  to  deliver,  directed  his  attention  to 
the  fact  that  the  utterance  was  almost  identical 
with  that  made  a  year  before  by  Taft  at  Winona, 
which  had  called  down  upon  the  President  the 
fiercest  sort  of  denunciation.  But  this  did  not 
at  all  embarrass  ex-President  Roosevelt.  He 
promptly  adjusted  himself  to  western  ideas 
upon  the  tariff,  by  cutting  out  of  his  speeches 
in  Iowa,  Kansas,  and  other  western  states  the 
approval  of  the  Aldrich  bill  which  had  been 
written  in  when  the  speeches  were  prepared 
for  delivery.  Thus  he  made  the  right  impres 
sion  upon  the  west  for  the  time  being.  But  it 
was  a  distinct  shock  to  his  admirers  beyond 
the  Mississippi  a  little  later  when  Roosevelt 
joined  with  the  New  York  standpatters  in  the 
Republican  State  Convention  in  praising  the 
Payne-Aldrich  Tariff  Bill  and  President  Taft's 
administration.  In  this  convention,  which  met 
at  Saratoga,  Roosevelt  had  such  absolute  con 
trol  that  he  was  able  to  elect  himself  chairman, 
make  the  keynote  speech,  and  nominate  his  per 
sonal  friend  Stimson  for  Governor.  He  agreed 
to,  voted  for,  and  throughout  the  campaign 


492  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

supported  the  New  York  State  platform,  con 
taining  the  following: 

' 'The  Payne-Aldrich  Tariff  Law  reduced  the 
average  rate  of  all  duties  11  per  cent.  By 
increasing  the  duties  on  some  luxuries  and  articles 
not  of  ordinary  use,  making,  however,  no  in 
creases  on  any  common  food  product,  it  turned 
a  national  deficit  into  a  surplus." 

The  New  York  platform  also  contained  this 
further  declaration: 

"We  enthusiastically  endorse  the  progressive 
and  statesmanlike  leadership  of  William  Howard 
Taft,  and  declare  our  pride  in  the  achievements 
of  his  first  eighteen  months  as  President  of  the 
United  States.  Each  succeeding  month  since 
his  inauguration  has  confirmed  the  nation  in  its 
high  estimate  of  his  greatness  of  character,  in 
tellectual  ability,  sturdy  common  sense,  extra 
ordinary  patience  and  perseverance,  broad  and 
statesmanlike  comprehension  of  public  questions, 
and  unfaltering  and  unswerving  adherence  to 
duty." 

Roosevelt's  course  in  the  Saratoga  convention 
was  a  staggering  blow  to  Progressive  Repub 
licans  throughout  the  middle  and  western  states, 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  493 

where  press  and  people  alike  condemned  him. 
He  led  the  campaign  for  Stimson  and  the  New 
York  platform  in  the  election  of  1910  —  mak 
ing  it  his  own  fight  —  and  was  overwhelmingly 
defeated. 

For  many  months  little  was  heard  from  him. 
It  was  plain  that  the  Progressive  movement 
could  not  be  tied  up  with  the  Taft  admin 
istration  by  anybody.  The  Progressives  in  the 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  held 
steadily  to  their  course.  They  could  not  be 
coerced  by  the  administration,  through  the  use 
of  patronage,  into  supporting  measures  not  in 
the  public  interest.  Every  day  strengthened 
their  cause  before  the  people.  Every  question 
with  which  they  dealt  placed  Progressive  issues 
more  clearly  and  definitely  before  the  public, 
as  the  most  fundamentally  important  political 
movement  in  a  generation  of  time. 

As  we  drew  on  toward  the  close  of  1910  word 
was  frequently  brought  to  the  Progressive  leaders 
in  Washington  by  some  of  Roosevelt's  close  per 
sonal  friends  that  he  had  been  chastened  by  his 
recent  experience  and  enlightened  by  a  better 


494  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

understanding  of  public  opinion;  that  he  was 
becoming  more  progressive  and  would  eventu 
ally  be  found  in  the  ranks  of  those  who  were,  day 
by  day,  giving  that  movement  its  distinct  place 
in  political  history. 

For  nearly  a  year  the  formation  of  a  national 
league  to  promote  progressive  legislation  in  the 
different  states  had  been  under  discussion  among 
a  few  of  the  Progressive  Senators  and  Members 
of  the  House  of  Representatives.  And  during 
the  holiday  recess  in  the  last  days  of  December, 
1910,  I  drafted  a  Declaration  of  Principles  and 
form  of  constitution  for  the  organization  of  such 
a  league,  and  submitted  the  same  to  Senators 
Bourne  and  Bristow.  With  some  modifications 
suggested  by  the  Senators  in  our  conference, 
the  declaration  and  constitution  were  prepared 
for  signatures  and  copies  mailed  to  Senators  and 
Members  who  had  returned  to  their  homes  for  the 
recess,  and  to  leading  Progressives  in  different 
states.  The  organization  was  effected  at  a  meet 
ing  held  at  my  residence,  1864  Wyoming  Avenue, 
Washington,  D.  C.,  on  the  twenty -first  day  of 
January,  1911.  Jonathan  Bourne  was  elected 


I 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  495 

President;  Frederic  C.  Howe,  Secretary;  Charles 
R.  Crane,  Treasurer.  Following  is  the  Declara 
tion  of  Principles  adopted: 

We,  the  undersigned,  associate  ourselves  to 
gether  as  The  National  Progressive  Republican 
League. 

The  object  of  the  League  is  the  promotion 
of  popular  government  and  progressive  legisla 
tion. 

Popular  government  in  America  has  been 
thwarted  and  progressive  legislation  strangled 
by  the  special  interests,  which  control  caucuses, 
delegates,  conventions,  and  party  organizations; 
and,  through  this  control  of  the  machinery  of 
government,  dictate  nominations  and  platforms, 
elect  administrations,  legislatures,  representa 
tives  in  Congress,  United  States  Senators,  and 
control  cabinet  officers. 

Under  existing  conditions  legislation  in  the 
public  interest  has  been  baffled  and  defeated. 
This  is  evidenced  by  the  long  struggle  to  secure 
laws  but  partially  effective  for  the  control  of 
railway  rates  and  services,  the  revision  of  the 
tariff  in  the  interest  of  the  producer  and  con 
sumer,  statutes  dealing  with  trusts  and  combina 
tions,  based  on  sound  economic  principles,  as 
applied  to  modern  industrial  and  commercial 
conditions;  wise,  comprehensive  and  impartial 
reconstruction  of  banking  and  monetary  laws, 
the  conservation  of  coal,  oil,  gas,  timber,  water- 


496  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

powers,  and  other  natural  resources  belonging 
to  the  people,  and  for  the  enactment  of  all  legis 
lation  solely  for  the  common  good. 

Just  in  proportion  as  popular  government  has, 
in  certain  states  superseded  the  delegate  con 
vention  system,  and  the  people  have  assumed 
control  of  the  machinery  of  government,  has 
government  become  responsive  to  the  popular 
will,  and  progressive  legislation  been  secured. 

The  Progressive  Republican  League  believes 
that  popular  government  is  fundamental  to  all 
other  questions.  To  this  end  it  advocates: 

(1)  The  election  of  United  States  Senators 
by  direct  vote  of  the  people. 

(2)  Direct  primaries  for  the  nomination  of 
elective  officials. 

(3)  The  direct  election  of  delegates  to  national 
conventions  with  opportunity  for  the  voter  to 
express  his  choice  for  President  and  Vice-Presi- 
dent. 

(4)  Amendment  to   state  constitutions  pro 
viding  for  the  Initiative,  Referendum  and  Recall. 

(5)  A  thoroughgoing  corrupt  practices  act. 

Roosevelt  was  invited  to  become  a  member  of 
the  National  Progressive  Republican  League, 
founded  upon  this  simple  declaration  of  elemen 
tary  principles,  but  he  had  not  become  enough  of 
a  Progressive  at  that  time  to  be  willing  to  iden 
tify  himself  with  the  organization,  and  therefore 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  497 

declined.  He  was  urged  to  join  the  League  for 
several  reasons.  The  name  of  a  former  President 
would  give  strength  to  the  organization.  It 
would  help,  sooner  or  later,  to  place  him  in  open 
opposition  to  the  Taft  administration.  It  would 
commit  him  to  a  clear-cut  and  definite  position 
upon  the  five  propositions  embodied  in  the 
Declaration  of  Principles.  This  would  be  very 
important,  as  it  is  his  political  habit  so  to  state 
and  qualify  his  positions  that  you  are  never 
quite  sure  of  him. 

I  think  it  is  fair  to  say  that  the  activities 
of  this  League  resulted  in  the  enactment  of 
the  presidential  preference  laws  in  the  several 
states  during  the  legislative  sessions  of  1912. 
Oregon  had  already  adopted  its  statute.  Wiscon 
sin,  five  years  before,  had  enacted  a  law  under 
which  the  delegates  to  the  National  Republican 
Convention  of  1908  were  elected  by  direct  vote  of 
the  people.  This  law  was  supplemented  by  the 
legislature  of  1912  providing  fora  direct  vote  on 
presidential  and  vice-presidential  candidates. 
North  Dakota,  Nebraska,  California,  New 
Jersey,  Illinois,  and  Massachusetts  enacted  simi- 


498  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

lar  statutes,  and  in  South  Dakota  steps  were 
taken  to  elect  delegates  by  direct  vote  under 
an  existing  primary  law,  though  the  provision 
authorizing  such  election  of  delegates  had  not 
previously  been  invoked.  The  League,  under 
the  direction  of  its  president,  Senator  Bourne, 
did,  and  is  continuing  to  do,  effective  work  in 
advancing  the  principles  to  promote  which  it 
was  organized. 

That  the  Progressive  Republicans  should  pre 
sent  a  candidate  for  nomination  for  the  presi 
dency  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Taft  had  long  been 
considered  by  the  leaders  of  that  element  of  the 
party,  and  with  the  beginning  of  the  new  year 
(1911)  many  conferences  were  held  on  that 
subject.  These  gatherings  were  attended  not 
only  by  Progressive  members  of  the  Senate  and 
House,  but  also  by  representative  Progressives 
who  visited  Washington  from  time  to  time.  The 
interest  of  the  Progressive  cause  was  the  control 
ling  thought  in  all  of  those  deliberations.  None 
of  the  men  whose  availability  as  candidates  was 
discussed  manifested  any  eagerness  to  under 
take  the  contest,  though  all  were  agreed  that 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  499 

Progressive  Republicans  were  in  duty  bound  to 
oppose  the  renomination  of  President  Taft.  Not 
only  because  of  the  division  which  had  arisen 
in  the  Republican  party  upon  principle  was  it 
conceded  that  his  nomination  must  be  opposed, 
but  because  whatever  the  outcome,  the  integrity 
and  perpetuity  of  the  Progressive  movement 
demanded  that  it  should  present  for  the  support 
of  Progressive  Republicans  throughout  the  coun 
try  a  candidate  who  represented  its  principles. 

It  was  well  understood  that  owing  to  the 
peculiar  conditions  existing  in  the  south,  which 
made  it  certain  that  the  administration  through 
patronage  could  control  the  selection  of  prac 
tically  all  delegates  from  that  section  of  the 
country,  Mr.  Taft  had  a  very  great  advantage 
at  the  outset.  Even  in  the  northern  states 
the  federal  machine  is  a  powerful  factor  in 
the  election  of  delegates,  though  the  can 
didate  may  be  personally  weak,  or  even  obnox 
ious,  and  the  power  of  the  President's  steam  roller 
had  been  demonstrated  so  thoroughly  in  the 
previous  convention  that  every  one  familiar  with 
that  campaign  accepted  it  as  a  tremendous  force 


500  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

to  be  reckoned  with.  Taft  had  almost  no  in 
dividual  strength  or  following  in  1908.  But 
President  Roosevelt  put  his  personality  behind 
an  army  of  federal  officials  and  nominated  him 
against  all  opposition.  I  was  in  a  position  at 
that  time  to  know  definitely  the  public  senti 
ment  of  the  west  and  middle  western  states. 
For  many  years  I  had  addressed  great  audiences 
throughout  those  states,  beginning  while  I  was 
governor  of  Wisconsin  and  continuing  the  work 
after  I  came  to  the  Senate  in  the  recesses  be 
tween  sessions  of  Congress.  I  had  received 
much  encouragement,  particularly  from  that 
portion  of  the  country,  in  support  of  my  own 
candidacy  for  the  Republican  nomination 
months  prior  to  the  meeting  of  the  convention 
in  1908.  But  political  sentiment,  however 
strong,  unsupported  by  organization  and  the 
finances  with  which  to  meet  the  necessary 
expenses  of  a  campaign,  cannot  withstand  the 
assault  of  a  compact,  well -disciplined,  well- 
managed  federal  machine,  directed  by  one 
trained  in  the  arts  of  modern  political  cam 
paigning. 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  501 

Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  it  is  nevertheless  a 
fact  in  political  history,  that  Roosevelt  planned 
and  consummated  Taft's  succession  to  the  presi 
dency.  The  campaign  of  1912  witnessed  the 
publication  by  Roosevelt  of  a  letter  written  to 
him  by  President  Taft  shortly  after  his  inaugu 
ration  which  contained  this  startling  acknowl 
edgment  : 

"I  can  never  forget  that  the  power  I  now  exer 
cise  was  voluntarily  transferred  from  you  to  me, 
and  that  I  am  under  obligation  to  you  to  see 
that  your  judgment  in  selecting  me  as  your  suc 
cessor  and  bringing  about  the  succession  shall 
be  vindicated  according  to  the  standards  which 
you  and  I  in  conversation  have  always  formu 
lated." 

When  this  was  given  to  the  public  by  the 
former  President,  in  a  speech  at  Worcester, 
Mass.,  April  26,  1912,  it  was  with  the  naive 
comment:  "It  is  a  bad  trait  to  bite  the  hand 
that  feeds  you." 

The  admission  of  the  beneficiary  of  this  crime 
against  democracy,  with  the  comment  of  the 
man  who  planned  and  executed  it,  should  have 


502  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

taken  both  Taft  and  Roosevelt  out  of  the  1912 
campaign.  The  presidency  is  the  people's  office. 
That  it  was  passed  as  one  might  transfer  the 
title  to  a  house  and  lot  makes  a  mockery  of  every 
principle  upon  which  constitutional  govern 
ment  is  founded. 

\ 

But,  to  resume  my  narrative:  With  a  single 
exception  those  who  professed  any  interest  in 
the  Progressive  cause  regarded  it  as  an  impera 
tive  duty  to  oppose  the  renomination  of  Taft 
with  a  pronounced  and  thoroughgoing  Progres 
sive  candidate.  Boosevelt  was  the  exception. 
He  was  opposed  to  bringing  out  a  Progressive 
candidate.  Before  the  close  of  the  session  in 
March,  1911,  he  had  caused  it  to  be  made  known 
to  the  Progressives  in  Washington,  through  a 
number  of  his  close  personal  friends  who  sus 
tained  intimate  relations  with  them,  that  while 
he  was  at  last  hostile  to  Taft,  he  was  not  in  favor 
of  opposing  his  renomination.  Among  those  who 
saw  him  oftert  in  New  York,  and  constituted  the 
medium  of  communication  with  Progressives  in 
Washington,  were  Gifford  Pinchot,  E.  A.  Van 
Valkenberg,^  manager  of  the  Philadelphia  North 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  503 

American,  and  Gilson  Gardner.  They  espe 
cially  were  the  bearers  of  frequent  messages, 
and  the  accepted  spokesmen  of  Roosevelt  in 
published  interviews  regarding  Taft's  adminis 
tration.  Through  these  men  we  were  informed 
that  while  Roosevelt  was  at  this  time,  in  the 
winter  of  1911,  against  Taft,  that  he  (Roosevelt) 
did  not  want  to  see  any  Progressive  candidate  put 
in  the  field  against  him;  that  he  was  confident 
of  two  things :  first,  that  Taft  could  not  be  beaten 
for  nomination;  and  second,  1912  would  be  a  Dem 
ocratic  year  and  no  Republican,  either  Progres 
sive  or  reactionary,  could  be  elected  President; 
that,  therefore,  he  would  prefer  to  see  Taft 
renominated  without  opposition,  and  beaten  at 
the  polls.  None  of  these  men  who  reported 
Roosevelt's  position  at  that  time  agreed  fully 
with  him.  Pinchot  from  the  first  was  insistent 
that  a  fight  should  be  made  against  Taft's  nomi 
nation;  that  it  could  not  be  made  without  a  Pro 
gressive  candidate,  and  that  the  future  of  the 
Progressive  movement  demanded  that  such  a 
contest  be  waged.  In  the  event  of  failure  Pin 
chot  then,  and  afterward,  urged  that  he  would 


504  TAFTS  UNAVAILABILITY 

like  to  see  such  candidate  lead  a  third  party  fight 
upon  Taft,  should  the  latter  secure  the .  nomi 
nation. 

Many  conferences  were  held.  Indeed,  scarcely 
a  day  passed  when  the  subject  was  not  informally 
discussed  between  the  Progressive  Senators  and 
Members  of  the  House,  as  they  met  from  time 
to  time.  The  third  session  of  the  61st  Congress 
closed  on  the  fourth  of  March,  1911,  without  any 
definite  conclusion  being  reached,  although  it 
was  pretty  generally  understood  that  we  must 
take  some  formal  action  soon. 

The  President  convened  Congress  in  extra 
session  on  the  fifteenth  of  April,  1911,  for  the  con 
sideration  of  the  so-called  "Reciprocity"  agree 
ment  with  Canada,  which  had  been  defeated  in 
the  closing  days  of  the  previous  session.  The  Pro 
gressives  in  both  houses  of  Congress  quite  gener 
ally  opposed  the  pact  with  Canada,  upon  the 
ground  that  it  was  not  a  fairly  reciprocal  agree 
ment  —  that  it  discriminated  against  the  agri 
cultural  interests  of  this  country  and  in  favor  of 
the  already  over-protected  trusts  and  combina 
tions.  Gifford  Pinchot  and  also  his  brother 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  505 

Amos  Pinchot,  who  had  joined  in  some  of  the 
conferences  before  referred  to,  and,  likewise,  Van 
Valkenberg,  were  very  much  exercised  over  what 
they  termed  the  political  mistake  of  the  Progres 
sives  in  opposing  the  Canadian  Pact.  While  I  do 
not  now  recall  that  either  of  those  men  quoted 
Roosevelt  as  being  in  accord  with  them  on  this 
legislation,  he  was  nevertheless  strongly  in  favor 
of  the  Canadian  Pact,  as  will  appear  later  in  this 
narrative. 

As  the  session  advanced,  the  strength  of  the 
Progressive  position  on  reciprocity  developed 
markedly.  Though  the  press  of  the  country, 
which  derived  a  special  advantage  from  the 
proposed  agreement,  denounced  all  opposition 
to  the  President's  program,  the  agricultural 
interests  were  so  solidly  arrayed  against  it  that 
Roosevelt  and  his  friends  ceased  to  advocate  the 
President's  policy  for  this  legislation.  Later,  as 
I  shall  show,  when  it  became  politically  expe 
dient,  Roosevelt  took  a  positive  stand  against 
reciprocity. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  1911  Roosevelt  prepared 
for  another  tour  of  the  country.  This  trip  was 


506  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

arranged  pursuant  to  invitations  which  he  had 
received  during  the  preceding  months  to  deliver 
addresses  in  several  states.  It  offered  an  ex 
cellent  opportunity  to  try  out  public  sentiment 
to  determine  whether  time  had  in  some  measure 
restored  him  to  the  popular  favor,  which  he  had 
sacrificed  as  a  result  of  his  course  in  the  Sara 
toga  Convention  and  the  crushing  defeat  of 
his  candidate  in  the  New  York  election. 

Up  to  this  time  there  had  been  no  change 
in  his  opinion  regarding  opposition  to  Taft's 
renomination,  as  the  Progressives  in  Washington 
were  advised  from  time  to  time  through  those 
friends  of  his  who  kept  us  informed.  He  \vas 
deadly  hostile  to  Taft,  but  still  felt  that  he 
could  not  be  beaten  in  the  convention,  and 
that  he  should  be  allowed  to  take  the  nomina 
tion  without  contest  and  then  be  given  a 
beating  at  the  polls.  But  so  far  as  reported  to 
our  group  in  Washington,  the  idea  of  a  Progres 
sive  candidate  for  the  presidency,  even  if  de 
feated  in  the  convention,  as  a  means  of  holding 
together  an  advance  Progressive  movement, 
seemed  to  have  no  place  in  his  political  thinking. 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  507 

His  mind  was  dwelling  upon  immediate  political 
victory  or  defeat.  In  all  that  we  heard  from 
Roosevelt,  through  these  near  friends  of  his, 
the  continued  upbuilding  of  the  Progressive 
movement  for  the  restoration  of  representative 
government  was  not  a  subject  which  he  was 
considering  at  all. 

While  this  was  the  attitude  of  Roosevelt 
toward  a  Progressive  candidacy,  I  cannot  too 
strongly  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  Progressives 
in  Washington,  indeed  all  over  the  country, 
were  of  one  mind  —  that  there  should  be  a  Pro 
gressive  candidate.  My  own  mail,  and  that, 
I  think,  of  other  Progressive  Senators  and 
Representatives,  was  filled  with  urgent  appeals 
from  Progressives,  east  as  well  as  west,  that  some 
action  be  taken  at  once  to  place  a  candidate  in 
the  field.  Wliile  able  men  in  nearly  every  state 
in  the  north  were  active  in  promoting  Progres 
sive  principles  they  seemed  to  look  to  the  group 
in  Washington  to  take  the  initiative.  Scarcely 
a  day  passed  when  I  did  not  receive  calls  from 
strong  men  identified  with  the  Progressive  move 
ment,  who  came  to  Washington  on  other  mis- 


508  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

sions,  but  made  it  a  part  of  their  business  to 
press  this  matter  for  early  action.  Editors  and 
publishers  of  progressive  magazines  and  papers 
were  heard  from  directly  and  indirectly,  insist 
ing  that  there  should  be  no  further  delay  in 
taking  formal  action  to  the  end  that  Progres 
sive  Republicans  should  be  given  an  oppor 
tunity  to  support  some  one  who  could  be 
recognized  and  supported  as  representing  the 
Progressive  movement.  Among  those  urging 
action  none  were  more  aggressive  and  per 
sistent  ihan  the  Pinchots,  James  R.  Garfield, 
formerly  a  member  of  Roosevelt's  cabinet,  Van 
Valkenberg,  and  Gardner.  The  peculiarly  close 
relation  of  these  men  to  Roosevelt  and  their 
active  cooperation  was  a  source  of  special  encour 
agement  to  the  Progressive  group  in  Washington. 
The  question  of  Roosevelt's  attitude  toward  such 
a  candidacy  was,  of  course,  a  matter  of  much 
concern,  and  the  possibility  of  his  coming  into 
the  field  himself  as  a  candidate  was  often  raised 
in  our  interviews  with  these  men,  both  in  casual 
meetings  and  in  our  more  or  less  formal  confer 
ences.  At  this  time  the  invariable  answer  to 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  509 

any  question  touching  this  subject  was  that  he 
did  not  believe  there  should  be  a  candidate  at 
all;  and  as  to  himself,  it  was  not  to  be  thought 
of.  On  one  occasion,  I  remember,  it  was  stated 
by  Gardner  that  the  Colonel,  referring  to  the 
1910  election  in  New  York  as  a  Roosevelt  defeat, 
said  that  he  would  be  literally  eaten  up  if  he 
were  to  become  a  candidate,  and  that  he  could 
not  consider  such  a  thing. 

Roosevelt's  speaking  tour  of  the  country 
beginning  in  March,  1911,  lasted  more  than  six 
weeks.  He  came  back  quite  another  man.  There 
was  no  mistaking  the  fact  that  the  New  York 
gubernatorial  campaign  of  1910  had  left  him 
in  a  sorry  plight  politically.  This  was  the 
construction  which  he  himself  put  upon  the 
situation.  But  this  1911  trip  restored  his  self- 
confidence  in  a  marked  degree. 

In  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  there  can 
be  little  doubt  that  when  Roosevelt  left  the 
White  House  he  had  1916  firmly  in  his  mind. 
He  was  more  than  half  piqued  at  that  time 
because  his  suggestions  as  to  appointments  had 
been  ignored  by  his  successor.  He  returned 


510  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

from  Africa  to  find  that  many  changes  had  taken 
place;  the  Progressive  movement  he  found  far 
in  advance  of  him;  he  neither  understood  it, 
nor  was  he  in  sympathy  with  its  manifest 
purposes,  in  so  far  as  he  comprehended  them, 
e  deliberated  for  a  time  as  to  whether  he 
ould  stand  with  the  administration,  support 
ing  Taft  for  renomination,  or  seek  to  identify 
himself  with  the  Progressives  —  or  straddle. 
He  straddled.  It  left  him  awkwardly  stranded 
in  the  election  of  1910.  He  halted  to  take 
account  of  stock.  Events  were  rapidly  trans 
piring.  It  was  evident  that  the  Taft  adminis 
tration  was  losing  ground  day  by  day.  While 
Taft  made  some  effort  at  reconciliation,  he 
was. not  willing  wholly  to  subordinate  himself 
to  his  former  chief.  Nothing  less  would  have 
satisfied  Roosevelt.  Besides,  every  month  made 
it  clear  that  the  Taft  administration  was  becom 
ing  more  and  more  impossible.  The  congres 
sional  elections  of  1910  forecast  disaster  for 
the  Republican  party  in  1912.  Roosevelt  was 
still  looking  to  1916,  and  as  the  political  situation 
developed  in  the  following  year,  in  his  political 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  511 

philosophy,  which  is  always  personal,  Taft's 
renomination  and  defeat  in  1912  fitted  admir 
ably  into  his  plan. 

Then  came  this  tour  in  the  Spring  of  1911. 
It  fired  his  blood.  There  were  the  old-time 
crowds,  the  music,  the  cheers.  He  began  to 
think  of  1912  for  himself.  It  was  four  years 
better  than  1916;  and  four  years  counts  in  the  life 
of  a  man  turned  fifty -three ;  a  world  of  things  may 
happen  in  four  years.  But  every  one  saw  the 
uncertainties  of  1912.  Roosevelt  clearly  saw 
them.  He  could  take  no  chance.  He  could  not 
afford  to  become  a  candidate  against  Taft  and 
fail.  Why  not  put  forth  another  man,  and  feel 
out  the  Taft  strength?  If  it  became  apparent 
that  Taft  could  not  be  beaten  for  the  nomina 
tion,  a  contest  would  nevertheless  weaken  him 
and  make  his  defeat  in  the  election  the  more 
certain.  If  it  became  clear  that  Taft  could 
be  beaten  in  the  convention  and  furthermore 
that  he  (Roosevelt)  could  win  in  the  election 
against  a  Democrat,  his  restored  confidence, 
resulting  from  the  tour  of  1911,  made  him 
reasonably  certain  that  he  could  displace  the 


512  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

candidate  put  out  against  Taft,  stampede  the 
convention,  and  secure  the  nomination  for  him 
self.  Now,  let  us  see  how  this  Roosevelt  psy 
chosis  fits  the  facts  as  they  have  transpired. 

Shortly  after  Roosevelt's  return  from  his 
tour  of  1911  Gilson  Gardner  paid  him  another 
visit.  I  do  not  know  whether  this  was  at  Roose 
velt's  solicitation,  or  whether  he  went  over  on  his 
own  motion,  as  he  often  did.  But  be  that  as  it 
may,  he  came  back  the  bearer  of  a  most  impor 
tant  message.  Roosevelt,  he  said,  had  entirely 
changed  his  mind  regarding  a  Progressive  candi 
date  against  Taft;  he  now  believed  that  the 
Progressives  should  put  forward  a  candidate, 
that  /  should  be  that  candidate,  and  that  I  should 
get  into  the  fight  at  once;  that  I  stood  before 
the  country  in  a  different  relation  to  the  Pro 
gressive  movement  than  any  other  man;  that 
I  had  done  the  pioneer  work;  that  upon  his  re 
turn  from  the  west  he  had  visited  Madison, 
while  the  Wisconsin  legislature  was  still  in 
session;  that  he  had  been  very  much  surprised 
at  the  thoroughly  scientific  character  of  the 
work  under  way  in  that  state,  and  the  funda- 


TAFTS  UNAVAILABILITY  513 

mentally  sound  body  of  laws  which  had  been 
enacted  under  my  administration  as  governor; 
that  the  Progressive  movement  in  Wisconsin  had 
reached  a  stage  of  practical  demonstration  of  its 
wisdom  and  thorough  soundness.  He  said  that 
he  was  still  inclined  to  believe  that  Taft  could 
not  be  beaten;  that  he  (Roosevelt)  could  not 
openly  oppose  him  as  a  candidate  because  he 
had  made  him  President;  that  he  could  not,  for 
the  same  reason,  openly  advocate  my  candidacy 
against  Taft;  but  that  he  would,  if  I  became  a 
candidate,  commend  my  work  from  time  to  time 
in  the  Outlook  and  help  along  in  that  way;  that 
while  visiting  the  legislature  in  Madison  he 
had  spoken  there  and  strongly  endorsed  my 
work;  that  he  did  it,  having  in  mind  the  possible 
announcement  of  my  candidacy,  with  the  idea 
that  it  would  be  useful  and  helpful  as  an  ex 
pression  of  approval.  He  said  further  that  if 
Taft  could  not  be  beaten  for  the  nomination, 
as  he  was  still  inclined  to  believe,  I  could  never 
theless  stand  as  a  candidate,  and  if  defeated  in 
the  convention,  I  would  not  be  weakened  before 
the  country. 


514  TAFTS  UNAVAILABILITY 

This  same  statement  was  made  by  Gardner 
many  times  to  me  and  to  my  friends  in  Wash 
ington  and  elsewhere. 

Secretary  of  War  Stimson  visited  Roosevelt 
in  January,  1912,  and  upon  his  return  to  Wash 
ington  reported  to  his  college  friends,  Gifford 
Pinchot  and  Congressman  William  Kent,  that 
Roosevelt  was  not  really  opposed  to  Taft's 
renomination,  and  that  he  (Roosevelt)  had  said 
he  regarded  Taft  as  the  most  available  man  for 
the  Republican  nomination.  Gardner,  when 
he  heard  Stimson's  statement  reported  at  our 
headquarters,  became  quite  resentful  against 
Roosevelt,  and  said  to  me  in  the  presence  of 
Houser,  my  campaign  manager,  and  others  that 
he  would  make  a  signed  statement  setting  forth 
the  fact  that  he  had  brought  Roosevelt's  mes 
sage  to  me  urging  me  to  be  the  candidate  and  to 
declare  my  candidacy  at  once.  Subsequently, 
when  it  became  certain  that  Roosevelt  would  be  a 
candidate,  I  requested  Houser  to  ask  Gardner  for 
this  statement.  He  then  refused  to  make  it, 
unless  Houser  promised  it  would  not  be  used 
against  Roosevelt.  And  as  Houser  could  not 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  515 

make  such  a  promise,  Gardner  declined  to  furnish 
the  statement. 

During  the  North  Dakota  campaign,  in  reply 
to  a  letter  published  by  Gifford  Pinchot  and 
sent  broadcast  throughout  the  state,  Houser 
gave  to  the  press  a  statement  reviewing  the 
history  of  my  candidacy,  including  Roosevelt's 
connection  with  it,  and  his  message  delivered  to 
me  through  Gardner.  To  meet  this,  Gardner 
came  out  with  a  denial  of  the  truth  of  Houser's 
statement.  Gardner's  denial  promptly  called 
forth  an  interview  from  George  S.  Loftus,  Presi 
dent  of  the  Minnesota  Progressive  League,  which 
is  contained  in  the  following  dispatch  .printed 
in  the  New  York  Tribune: 

URGED    LA    FOLLETTE    TO    RUN 

"Minneapolis,  March  17. — An  answer  to  the 
letter  of  Gilson  Gardner,  in  which  it  was  said 
that  any  statement  that  Colonel  Roosevelt  had 
urged  Senator  La  Follette  to  become  a  candidate 
was  untrue,  was  issued  here  last  night  by  George 
Loft  us,  President  of  the  Minnesota  Progressive 
League.  It  is  as  follows : 

"The  statement  made  by  Walter  L.  Houser 
relating  to  the  message  that  Gilson  Gardner 


516  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

carried  from  Colonel  Roosevelt  to  Senator  La 
Follette  is  correct,  according  to  a  statement 
made  by  Mr.  Gardner  himself  to  a  number  of 
Progressives  at  a  luncheon  which  they  tendered 
Mr.  Gardner  at  the  Odin  Club  on  October  9, 
1911. 

"Mr.  Gardner  stated  further  that  the  Colonel 
advised  him  that  he  would  not  be  a  candidate, 
and  under  no  circumstances  would  he  accept  the 
nomination  if  tendered  to  him.  That  state 
ment  somewhat  surprised  a  number  present, 
and  they  questioned  him  again  concerning  it. 
He  repeated  his  statement  and  said  that  when 
the  time  came  'we  would  find  the  Colonel  lined 
up  with  La  Follette  against  Taft." 

On  the  thirtieth  of  April  a  conference  of 
Progressives  was  held  in  Senator  Bourne's  com 
mittee  room  in  the  capitol,  attended  by  sev 
eral  Senators  and  Representatives  —  Senators 
Cummins,  Clapp,  Bourne,  Gronna,  Poindexter; 
Representatives  Lenroot,  Hubbard,  Norris  ; 
Professor  Merriam,  Senator  Clyde  Jones,  and 
Walter  S.  Rogers,  of  Chicago,  the  latter  repre 
senting  Charles  R.  Crane;  Gilson  Gardner;  Angus 
McSween,  representing  Mr.  Van  Valkenberg  of 
the  Philadelphia  North  American,  and  a  number 
of  others  whom  I  do  not  now  recall.  Professor 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  517 

Merriam,  Senator  Jones,  and  Mr.  Rogers,  lead 
ing  Progressives  of  Illinois,  had  come  on  to 
Washington  to  urge  that  action  be  taken  to 
bring  out  a  Progressive  candidate  for  the  presi 
dency;  that  such  action  would  greatly  aid  the 
Progressive  movement  in  Illinois.  Merriam  had 
been  the  Progressive  candidate  for  Mayor  of 
Chicago,  had  made  a  brilliant  campaign?  a,n<^  <* 
splendid  run.  Senator  Jones,  the  Progressive 
leader  in  the  Illinois  State  Senate,  was  then  a 
candidate  for  the  nomination  for  governor. 
Practically  all  who  were  present  took  part  in 
the  discussion.  There  was  unanimity  of  senti 
ment  that  the  Progressives  must  unite  upon 
one  of  the  Progressive  leaders  as  a  candidate. 
Though  some  one  suggested  the  favorite  son 
plan,  putting  forth  several  Progressive  candi 
dates,  no  one  seriously  regarded  such  plan  as 
feasible. 

Senator  Cummins,  whose  name  had  been 
widely  mentioned  in  the  press  as  a  possible  can 
didate,  took  prominent  part  in  the  discussion. 
He  said: 

"There  is  but  one  man  who  should  be  con- 


518  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

sidered  as  the  Progressive  candidate,  and  that 
is  Senator  La  Follette." 

When  asked  as  to  his  own  candidacy,  he  em 
phatically  replied,  "I  shall  not  be  a  candidate; 
it  is  out  of  the  question." 

He  added  that  he  felt  he  ought  to  say  regard 
ing  Iowa  that  there  would  be  a  sharp  contest 
between  the  standpatters  and  the  Progressives, 
and  that  no  Progressive  candidate,  himself  or 
any  ether,  could  carry  the  state  solidly;  he  had 
no  doubt  he  said  that  a  number  of  districts 
could  be  carried  for  Senator  La  Follette,  and 
added,  "  If  he  consents  to  make  the  fight,  I  will 
do  everything  in  my  power  in  Iowa  to  elect 
as  many  delegates  as  possible  to  support  him 
in  the  convention." 

I  said  at  that  time,  what  I  said  in  all  of  our 
conferences,  and  to  leading  Progressives  who 
wrote  me  from  various  parts  of  the  country,  or 
called  on  me  in  Washington  —  that  the  Progres 
sives  of  the  country  could  not  support  President 
Taft  for  renomination,  nor  could  they,  without 
stultification,  remain  silent  and  permit  him  to  be 
nominated;  that  we  must  put  forward  a  candi- 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  519 

date,  whether  that  candidate  win  or  lose;  that 
Taft,  with  the  power  of  southern  patronage, 
would  certainly  secure  the  southern  delegates 
to  start  with,  which  would  give  him  a  long 
lead;  that  I  was  confident,  however,  he  would 
be  found  to  have  little  strength  west  of  the 
Alleghenies;  that  to  stand  as  the  candidate 
meant  the  sacrifice  of  much  time  and  strength, 
with  the  chance  in  favor  of  a  defeat  in  the 
convention;  that  I  was  willing  to  support  any 
thoroughgoing  Progressive;  that  I  was  willing  to 
make  the  fight  as  the  candidate  if  the  Progres 
sives  agreed  that  I  ought  to  do  so,  provided  men 
could  be  found  to  contribute  the  money  required 
to  meet  the  necessary  expenses —  a  sufficient  sum 
to  make  it  certain  that  the  campaign  could  be 
carried  forward,  headquarters  maintained,  litera 
ture  printed  and  distributed,  a  force  of  clerks  and 
stenographers  employed  to  take  care  of  corre 
spondence  ;  without  this  assurance,  I  said  it  were 
better  not  to  undertake  it  at  all.  I  think  every 
man  present  stated  it  as  his  opinion  that  I 
should  become  the  candidate.  Gardner  told  of 
his  interview  with  Roosevelt.  McSween  pre- 


520  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

sented  the  views  of  Van  Valkenberg,  giving  his 
(Van  Valkenberg' s)  reasons  why  I  should  be 
come  the  Progressive  candidate:  Wisconsin,  he 
said,  had  carried  the  Progressive  movement  to 
the  point  of  demonstration;  my  work  there  and 
in  the  Senate,  in  itself,  should  settle  the  question 
as  to  my  candidacy. 

In  the  minds  of  those  who  were  present  at 
this  conference  the  whole  matter  was  regarded 
as  settled,  subject  to  our  being  able  to  secure 
such  contributions  as  would  make  the  campaign 
possible. 

I  have  given  what  took  place  in  this  confer 
ence  somewhat  in  detail,  because  it  is  typical 
of  many  others  that  were  held  before  and  after, 
attended  by  some  of  those  who  were  present 
on  this  occasion,  and  by  other  Senators  and 
Representatives  who  likewise  urged  me  to  stand 
as  the  candidate.  Among  other  Senators  and 
Representatives  who  tendered  support  to  my 
candidacy  were:  Bristow  of  Kansas,  Works  of 
California,  Crawford  of  South  Dakota,  Murdock 
of  Kansas,  Lindbergh  of  Minnesota,  Helgeson  of 
North  Dakota,  Haugen  of  Iowa,  Kent  of  Cali- 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

fornia,  Nelson,  Morse,  and  Gary  of  Wisconsin. 
Senator  Borah  of  Idaho  stated  that  there  were 
complications  in  his  state  which  he  thought  he 
could  best  take  care  of  by  making  no  open 
declaration  at  the  time,  but  gave  assurance  that 
the  delegation  from  his  state  could  be  depended 
upon  for  support  in  the  convention. 

The  foregoing  recital  can  give  but  an  imperfect 
idea  of  the  activity  and  zeal  of  many  of  the  gen 
tlemen  above  named  in  pressing  for  the  opening 
of  the  campaign.  Hardly  a  day  passed  that  I 
was  not  urged  to  give  the  final  word.  But  I  was 
resolved  that  I  would  not  consent  to  be  a  candi 
date  until  we  had  assurance  of  such  financial  sup 
port  as  would  enable  us  to  conduct  a  campaign 
worthy  of  the  movement.  Also  I  withheld 
consent  for  another  reason  —  a  personal  one. 
For  twenty  years  I  had  given  the  very  heart 
out  of  my  life  to  the  restoration  of  representative 
government  in  Wisconsin,  and  thereafter  to 
carrying  the  work  over  into  the  national  field. 
It  had  been  single-handed  work  in  the  beginning 
of  the  Wisconsin  struggle,  and  I  likewise  found 
myself  alone  in  the  national  contest  when  I  came 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

to  the  United  States  Senate.  I  would  not  over 
estimate  or  magnify  my  own  importance  in  that 
work,  nor  was  I  willing  to  under-estimate  it.  It 
had  become  my  life  work,  and  I  felt  that  I  had 
achieved  results  of  a  character  too  important 
and  substantial  to  lend  myself  to  any  cam 
paign  plans  which  might  permit  me  to  be  made 
a  mere  pawn  in  the  national  game.  I  may 
be  thought  to  have  taken  myself  too  seriously, 
but,  I  must  set  down  here  the  truth,  subject  to 
whatever  judgment  may  be  passed  upon  it.  In 
other  words,  I  estimated  my  own  worth  to  the 
Progressive  cause  too  highly  to  consent  to  being 
used  as  a  candidate  for  a  time,  and  then,  to 
serve  some  ulterior  purpose,  conveniently  broken 
4  and  cast  upon  the  political  scrap  heap,  my  ability 
to  serve  the  Progressive  cause  seriously  damaged, 
and  possibly  the  movement  itself  diverted  and 
subordinated  to  mere  personal  ambition.  I 
would  have  been  unwilling  to  see  the  movement, 
after  it  was  committed  to  the  support  of  any 
thoroughgoing  Progressive,  shifted  for  political 
expediency  to  another  candidate,  either  in  the 
convention  or  in  the  campaign  leading  up  to  it. 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  523 

In  every  contest  situations  may  arise,  or  be 
created,  inviting  to  a  compromise  on  candidate 
or  principle.  The  temptation  to  yield  is  strong. 
Yet  in  my  whole  course  I  have  always  insisted  on 
driving  straight  ahead.  To  do  otherwise  not  only 
weakens  the  cause  for  which  you  are  contending 
but  destroys  confidence  in  your  constancy  of  pur 
pose. 

For  these  reasons  before  beginning  a  national 
campaign  for  the  Progressive  cause  I  was  impelled 
to  exercise  every  reasonable  precaution  against 
miscarriage  and  disaster.  I  could  foresee  the  pos 
sibility,  as  the  campaign  progressed,  and  Taft's 
real  weakness  developed,  as  I  personally  believed 
it  would,  that  either  Cummins  or  Roosevelt,  or 
perhaps  both,  might  then  be  tempted  to  thrust  in, 
thus  dividing  the  Progressive  strength  and  de 
feating  the  real  progress  which  a  clean-cut,  un 
compromising  campaign,  even  though  a  losing 
one,  would  insure  for  Progressive  principles.  But 
Senator  Cummins 'sword  had  already  been  passed, 
and  his  position  affirmed  by  his  repeated  as 
surances  made  to  others,  as  well  as  to  myself. 
Indeed,  in  the  last  interview  I  had  with  him. 


524  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

at  the  close  of  the  reciprocity  session,  he  said 
to  me: 

"I  want  to  say  to  you,  Bob,  before  going 
home,  that  I  think  it  impossible  to  carry 
the  state  of  Iowa  for  you  solidly;  but  we  can 
carry  a  number  of  districts  and  give  you  ten  or 
a  dozen  delegates.  And  I  have  come  to  say  that 
you  can  depend  upon  my  doing  everything  in 
my  power  to  secure  you  the  largest  possible 
number  of  votes  in  Iowa." 

I  answered:  "That  is  all  that  any  one  can 
ask,  Albert.  I  am  certain  if  you  will  give  me 
your  best  support,  that  I  shall  have  a  good  repre 
sentation  out  of  the  Iowa  delegation  to  the 
National  Convention." 

As  to  Roosevelt,  Gifford  Pinchot  said  again 
and  again:  "Roosevelt  will  not  be  a  candidate. 
He  has  said  repeatedly  that  he  could  not  be  a 
candidate  against  Taft.  And  from  many  talks 
with  him  I  am  as  certain  as  I  live  that  he  will  be 
found  actively  and  openly  supporting  your  can 
didacy  before  the  campaign  ends.  It  will  be 
impossible  for  him  to  take  any  other  course." 

Mr.  Van  Valkenberg,  in  one  of  his  last  con- 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  525 

ferences  with  me  in  Washington,  told  of  an 
extended  interview  with  Roosevelt  which  repre 
sented  his  position  as  one  of  strong  encourage 
ment  to  my  candidacy.  Roosevelt  had  read  to 
him  an  article  which  he  had  prepared  on  Wiscon 
sin  for  publication  in  the  Outlook.  It  was  subse 
quently  published  on  the  twenty-seventh  of  May, 
1911.  Van  Valkenberg  stated  that  Roosevelt 
was  growing  more  and  more  hostile  to  Taft  and 
that  he  would  never  under  any  circumstances 
support  his  nomination;  that  while  he  did  not 
feel  that  he  could  go  farther  in  the  Outlook 
than  to  speak  in  commendatory  terms  of  my 
work  and  its  sound  and  rational  character, 
that  nevertheless  he  would  certainly,  in  a  per 
sonal  way,  with  political  friends  who  called 
upon  him  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  say 
the  right  word,  which  would  prove  immensely 
helpful.  It  is  just  to  Van  Valkenberg  to  say 
that  he  was  always  careful  to  give  it  as  his 
own  opinion  that  Taft  could  not  be  beaten,  but 
no  one  was  more  insistent  than  he  that  the  Progres 
sive  fight  should  be  made  against  Taft,  and  that 
I  was  the  one  man  in  the  country  to  make  it. 


526  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

With  these  assurances  I  decided  to  become  a 
candidate.  It  was  some  time  before  contribu 
tions  were  assured  which  warranted  the  formal 
opening  of  a  campaign.  Finally  such  assurances 
of  financial  support  were  given  by  Charles  R. 
Crane,  William  Kent,  Gifford  and  Amos  Pin- 
chot,  and  Alfred  L.  Baker  as  warranted  the 
opening  of  headquarters  and  the  inauguration 
of  the  campaign  for  my  nomination  as  the  Pro 
gressive  candidate. 

Before  taking  this  final  step  I  took  the  pre 
caution,  however,  to  say  to  those  who  became 
contributors  to  my  campaign,  and  particularly 
to  Gifford  Pinchot,  because  of  his  close  friend 
ship  for  Roosevelt,  that  it  must  be  under 
stood,  if  I  became  a  candidate,  I  should  remain 
a  candidate  until  I  was  nominated  or  defeated 
in  the  convention.  Indeed,  I  had  been  careful 
to  have  this  well  understood  by  all  of  my  sup 
porters  in  the  Senate  and  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  and  all  others  who  had  offered  me 
their  support.  I  said  to  them  again  and  again 
that  I  would  make  the  best  fight  I  could,  under 
standing,  as  everybody  did,  that  the  chances 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  527 

were  in  favor  of  Taft's  renomination,  as  at  that 
time  they  appeared  to  be;  but  that  it  would  be 
unfair  to  me,  and  more  than  that,  seriously  harm 
ful  to  the  Progressive  movement,  to  put  me  or 
any  other  candidate  into  the  field,  to  feel  out 
the  strength  of  the  opposition,  become  a  target 
for  the  enemy's  fire,  and  then  be  cast  aside  for 
some  one  who  had  been  watching  from  behind 
the  breastworks  for  favorable  opportunity. 

There  were  many  conferences  and  much  dis 
cussion  as  to  whether  there  should  be  a  formal 
announcement  of  my  candidacy.  At  one  time  a 
call  was  drafted,  and  signed,  by  a  number  of  my 
supporters  as  a  basis  for  presenting  the  matter 
to  the  public.  To  my  surprise  Senator  Cum 
mins  declined  to  sign  such  a  call.  This  raised 
again  the  question  in  my  mind  as  to  whether  it 
did  not  indicate  some  mental  reservation  re 
garding  the  pledge  which  he  had  given  to  support 
me,  and  renewed  my  concern  that  later  he  might 
enter  the  field  as  a  candidate  himself,  in  the 
event  that  my  campaign  should  demonstrate 
that  Taft  was  very  much  weaker  in  the  northern 
states  than  was  commonlv  believed  at  that  time. 


528  TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY 

But  Bourne  and  others,  who  had  many  personal 
interviews  with  Cummins  on  this  subject,  gave 
me  every  assurance  that  such  was  not  the  case, 
and  that  Cummins  would,  under  no  circum 
stances,  become  a  candidate;  that  his  reluctance 
to  sign  a  call  for  me  was  solely  because  he  did  not 
regard  that  as  the  best  form  of  introducing  my 
candidacy  to  the  public.  The  publication  of 
any  call  not  signed  by  Senator  Cummins  would, 
however,  at  once  have  led  the  opposition  press 
to  charge  that  I  did  not  have  the  united  support 
of  prominent  Progressives.  And  for  that  reason 
the  call  was  not  published. 

I  could  not  wholly  dismiss  from  my  mind  an 
apprehension  regarding  both  Roosevelt  and 
Cummins.  From  time  to  time  it  would  intrude 
itself  into  my  reflections.  I  was  confident  that 
both  were  eager  for  the  presidency.  I  knew 
that  either  of  them  would  be  more  acceptable 
to  the  reactionaries  than  I,  because  both,  judged 
by  their  public  records,  would  compromise  and 
make  terms  with  the  opposition.  And  I  con 
ceived  it  possible,  notwithstanding  Taft's  great 
advantage  through  patronage  and  the  federal 


TAFT'S  UNAVAILABILITY  529 

machine,  that  a  strong  campaign  would  show 
him  hopelessly  weak  as  a  candidate  through 
out  all  of  the  northern  states,  excepting  New 
England,  and  that  a  break  might  be  made  even 
in  New  England.  And  to  a  few  of  my  most  in 
timate  friends  I  said  from  the  beginning  that  I 
would  not  be  leading  a  wholly  forlorn  hope. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  TRUE  HISTORY  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 
FOR  THE  REPUBLICAN  NOMINATION  TO  THE 
PRESIDENCY 

SETTING  aside  all  doubts,  and  accepting 
the  promises  of  support  from  the  Pro 
gressives  at  face  value,  I  entered  upon 
the  campaign  for  the  nomination  with  vigor 
and  determination.  I  secured  the  services  of 
Walter  L.  Houser,  former  Secretary  of  State  of 
Wisconsin,  as  campaign  manager.  Headquar 
ters  were  established  in  Washington,  and  he  took 
charge,  with  a  clerical  force.  The  campaign 
was  diligently  prosecuted,  beginning  in  July, 
1911.  We  sent  out  thousands  of  letters  into  the 
northern  states,  especially  the  states  west  of  the 
Ohio  River.  My  candidacy  was  treated  with 
derision  by  supporters  of  the  Taf t  administration, 
and  the  great  body  of  the  metropolitan  press. 
But  in  less  than  three  months  it  had  taken  on 

530 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  531 

proportions  which  compelled  recognition.  The 
correspondence  became  so  heavy,  and  the  de 
mand  for  literature  and  campaign  speakers 
so  urgent,  that  it  was  soon  necessary  to 
double  the  working  force  at  headquarters,  and 
extend  plans  for  organization  by  states  through 
out  the  country,  excepting  in  the  south,  in  New 
York,  and  in  a  part  of  New  England.  Even 
in  the  extreme  east  it  would  have  been  possible 
to  have  made  much  headway  had  our  means 
permitted.  Indeed,  we  found  the  whole  country 
ready  to  break  away  from  the  reactionary  control 
of  politics  and  government.  Many  times  I  had 
said  to  my  associates  that  the  people  were  much 
in  advance  of  the  Progressives  in  Washington, 
and  overwhelming  proof  of  this  came  to  us  from 
every  side.  Strong  Progressive  organizations 
wrere  soon  perfected  in  numerous  states,  and  we 
were  greatly  strengthened  and  encouraged. 

By  October  the  campaign  had  attained  such 
proportions  that  it  seemed  desirable  and  neces 
sary  to  bring  together  the  leading  Progres 
sives  of  the  country  for  a  better  understanding 
as  to  local  conditions  in  carrying  forward  the 


532  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

work  in  a  national  way.  Pursuant  to  a  call 
issued  by  Chairman  Houser,  three  hundred  lead 
ing  Progressives  representing  thirty  states  assem 
bled  in  Chicago  on  the  sixteenth  of  October,  1911. 
It  was  a  remarkably  impressive  gathering  and 
continued  in  session  for  three  days  perfecting  an 
organization.  Many  addresses  were  made,  and 
throughout  all  of  its  deliberations  there  pre 
vailed  a  spirit  of  the  deepest  fervor  and  patriotism. 
Resolutions  were  adopted  declaratory  of  Progres 
sive  principles  and  endorsing  my  candidacy  in  the 
strongest  terms,  from  which  I  quote  the  folio  wing: 

"The  record  of  Senator  La  Follette  in  state 
and  nation  makes  him  the  logical  candidate  for 
President  of  the  United  States.  His  experience, 
his  character,  his  courage,  his  record  in  con 
structive  legislation  and  administrative  ability 
meet  the  requirements  for  leadership  such  as 
present  conditions  demand.  This  conference 
endorses  him  as  a  candidate  for  the  Republican 
nomination  for  President  and  urges  that  in  all 
states  organizations  be  formed  to  promote  his 
nomination. " 

In  that  great  conference,  from  first  to  last, 
there  was  but  one  discordant  note.  It  was 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  533 

sounded  by  James  R.  Garfield.  He  came  to  the 
meeting  direct  from  New  York,  where  he  had 
been  closeted  with  Roosevelt.  He  was  careful 
to  say  that  he  spoke  only  for  himself,  but  he  was 
singularly  persistent  in  opposing  any  endorse 
ment  of  my  candidacy.  He  did  his  work  chiefly 
with  the  Committee  on  Resolutions,  but  finding 
himself  quite  alone  and  his  efforts  futile,  he 
withdrew  further  opposition.  A  few  days  later 
I  received  a  letter  from  him  in  which  he  urged 
that  the  action  of  the  conference  be  not  inter 
preted  as  an  endorsement  of  my  candidacy. 
Garfield 's  course  was  rendered  the  more  signifi 
cant  by  the  appearance  of  an  editorial  in  the 
Outlook  (October  28,  1911),  in  which  the  un 
qualified  endorsement  of  the  Chicago  confer 
ence  is  referred  to  as  follows: 

"This  endorsement  is  to  be  regarded  as  a 
recommendation  rather  than  a  committal  of  the 
movement  to  any  one  man." 

Garfield 's  action  in  connection  with  the 
Chicago  conference  revived  my  distrust  regard 
ing  Roosevelt,  as  it  did  that  of  Mr.  Houser  and 


534  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

other  of  my  intimate  friends  who  attended  the 
Chicago  meeting,  and  knew  of  Garfield's  efforts 
with  the  Committee  on  Resolutions  to  block  the 
endorsement  of  my  candidacy. 

Just  prior  to  the  Chicago  conference,  Gardner 
had  visited  a  number  of  the  middle  western 
states,  through  which  President  Taft  was  then 
filling  a  series  of  speaking  engagements.  This 
trip  was  made  by  Gardner,  representing  the 
syndicate  of  papers  for  which  he  was  the  Wash 
ington  correspondent,  and  was  primarily  for  the 
purpose  of  forming  a  judgment  with  respect 
to  Taft's  strength  as  a  candidate  and  the 
strength  of  my  opposing  candidacy.  He  re 
turned  to  Washington  and  advised  me  that  in 
his  opinion  Taft  had  little  or  no  real  following 
west  of  the  Mississippi  River,  and  he  said:  "I 
have  come  definitely  to  the  conclusion  that  you 
now  have  a  fair  chance  to  win  the  nomination 
in  the  convention."  He  gave  it  as  his  opinion 
that  the  Progressives  from  the  Pacific  coast  and 
middle  western  states  were  certain  to  send  three 
hundred  to  three  hundred  and  fifty  delegates 
to  the  National  Convention.  He  announced 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  535 

that  he  was  going  over  to  New  York  to  acquaint 
Roosevelt  with  the  situation  as  he  saw  it,  and 
urge  him  to  a  more  active  and  more  open  support 
of  my  candidacy. 

Upon  his  return  Gardner  came  to  see  me.  I 
saw  at  once  that  his  interview  had  given  him 
some  new  impressions  of  Roosevelt's  attitude 
toward  my  candidacy.  Apparently  it  had  sud 
denly  dawned  upon  Roosevelt  that  Taft  could 
be  beaten.  Indeed,  Gardner  reported  that 
when  he  told  Roosevelt  that  there  would  be 
three  hundred  and  fifty  Progressive  delegates 
opposed  to  Taft's  renomination,  elected  west  of 
the  Mississippi,  Roosevelt  at  once  declared  that 
Taft  could  not  be  nominated  in  the  face  of  that 
opposition;  that  even  if  with  the  southern  dele 
gates  there  were  votes  enough  to  force  his  re- 
nomination,  no  federal  machine  would  dare  to 
name  him  in  the  face  of  so  much  opposition. 
Moreover,  the  Chicago  conference  had  very 
greatly  impressed  Roosevelt  with  the  Progres 
sive  support  that  was  coming  to  me.  In  report 
ing  his  interview  to  me,  Gardner  said: 

"Roosevelt  is  not  only  surprised  at  the  devel- 


536  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

opment  of  your  candidacy,  but  he  is  disappointed 
as  well."  And  then  explaining,  he  said  further: 
"Roosevelt  wants  to  be  President  again,  but 
you  know  it  has  heretofore  been  his  judgment 
that  Taft  could  not  be  beaten.  However,  he 
now  believes  that  he  will  be  beaten.  This 
change  of  opinion  is  not  due  alone  to  my  report 
of  the  conditions  in  the  west,  but  others  have 
seen  him;  and  then  this  Chicago  conference  has 
been  very  informing  to  him.  He  begins  to  see 
that  this  Progressive  movement  is  a  whole  lot 
bigger  than  he  has  ever  believed  it  to  be.  Now 
you  are  developing  such  strength  that  being 
nominated  in  1912  becomes  a  possibility.  And 
even  if  you  should  fail  of  the  nomination,  your 
leadership  of  the  Progressive  movement  would 
become  so  established  that  you  would  be  in  the 
way  in  1916." 

Gardner  was  plainly  impressed  by  the  change 
in  Roosevelt.  While  more  the  Colonel's  friend 
than  mine,  he  often  said  that  in  his  opinion 
Roosevelt  could  not  be  elected  if  nominated; 
that  he  had  repeatedly  urged  this  view  upon 
Roosevelt,  and,  furthermore,  that  notwithstand- 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  537 

ing  his  great  personal  attachment  for  Roosevelt, 
he  knew  his  weakness,  his  tendency  to  compro 
mise,  and  he  believed  that  "more  progress  would 
be  made  in  four  years  under  a  La  Follette  ad 
ministration  than  in  ten  years  under  a  Roose 
velt  administration." 

Gardner  had  found  Roosevelt  up  on  the  bit. 
Others  had  been  ahead  of  him  in  reporting  the 
decline  of  the  Taft  strength  and  the  astonishing 
progress  of  my  candidacy.  Dan  Hanna  of  Ohio, 
son  of  the  late  Mark  Hanna,  and  Nat  Wright,  his 
editor  of  the  Cleveland  Leader,  had  visited  Roose 
velt  just  ahead  of  Gardner,  and  had  urged  that 
it  was  time  for  him  to  "cut  the  string"  and  turn 
his  candidacy  loose.  Roosevelt  had  received 
also  a  report  in  writing  from  O'Laughlin,  cor 
respondent  for  the  Chicago  Tribune,  who  had 
been  with  Taft  on  his  "swing  around  the 
circle,"  and  he  reported  Taft  a  "dead  one,"  and 
urged  upon  Roosevelt  that  it  was  time  for  him 
to  get  in.  "Still,"  Gardner  said,  "he  will  not  do 
it.  He  cannot  come  out  as  a  candidate  against 
Taft.  He  knows  it.  He  has  said  so  himself 
again  and  again." 


538  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

While  there  was  this  flaming  up  of  Roose 
velt's  inner  desire,  he  did  not  "cut  the  string." 
But  manifestly  he  loosened  it,  giving  his  friends 
an  opportunity  to  start  here  and  there  an  "insist 
ent  demand"  that  he  should  be  the  candidate  of 
the  Progressives.  Thus,  following  the  visit  of 
Hanna  and  Wright  to  Roosevelt,  the  Cleveland 
Leader,  and  the  Toledo  Blade,  another  Hanna 
paper,  became  more  pronounced  in  advocacy  of 
Roosevelt  as  a  candidate. 

This  stirring  of  Roosevelt  sentiment  was 
cleverly  directed.  There  wTas  not  enough  of  it  to 
require  any  outward  change  of  attitude  on  the 
part  of  Roosevelt  himself,  but  just  sufficient  in 
Ohio  and  elsewhere  to  indicate  an  apparent  out 
cropping  of  a  powerful  underground  Roosevelt 
sentiment  in  certain  localities.  This  would 
serve  to  check  or  confuse  the  Progressive  support 
for  me  resulting  from  the  action  of  the  Chicago 
conference,  and  still  leave  Roosevelt  in  the  choice 
position  where  he  could  let  the  contest  go  on, 
deciding  later  what  course  it  would  be  advan 
tageous  for  him  to  take.  It  had  exactly  the 
desired  effect  upon  my  campaign  and  we  began 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  539 

to  receive  complaints  from  Progressive  leaders  in  \ 
Ohio  and  various  other  states  that  division  was 
being  created  in  the  Progressive  ranks  by  Roose-  / 
velt's  friends  who  were  giving  out  that  my  can 
didacy  was  really  in  Roosevelt's  interest  and 
that  at  the  right  time  he  would  be  brought  out  as 
the  real  candidate.  This  situation  was  seized 
upon  by  papers  favorable  to  the  Taft  adminis 
tration,  and  extensively  circulated.  In  some 
cases  it  was  represented  as  a  disagreement  in  the 
Progressive  ranks.  In  some  cases  it  was  an 
nounced  that  the  Progressives  supporting  my 
candidacy  were  being  hoodwinked,  and  that 
delegates  elected  for  me  would  be  delivered  to 
Roosevelt  in  the  convention.  Altogether  it  be 
came  a  very  serious  hindrance  to  the  progress 
of  our  canvass. 

Houser  complained  daily  that  his  work  was 
being  delayed  and  at  many  important  points 
brought  to  a  standstill.  Our  most  earnest  work 
ers,  men  who  were  supporting  my  campaign 
upon  the  record  of  achievement  in  Wisconsin,  the 
work  done  in  the  Senate,  and  in  short  my  whole 
course  as  a  Progressive;  men  who  would  not  have 


540  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

enlisted  in  a  campaign  for  Roosevelt,  and  who, 
further  than  this,  were  unwilling  to  play  a  double 
part,  urged  that  some  definite  statement  be 
issued  clearing  the  whole  matter  up.  Of  course, 
the  confusion  and  trouble  could  have  been  easily 
disposed  of  by  a  few  plain  words  from  Roosevelt. 
Gardner  and  Pinchot,  with  whom  we  talked  the 
matter  over,  insisted  again  and  again  that 
Roosevelt  did  not  intend  to  be  a  candidate,  but 
(  that  he  was  unwilling  to  make  any  statement 
\to  that  effect.  They  said  he  had,  while  Presi 
dent,  announced  that  he  would  not  again  be  a 
candidate,  and  that  advantage  had  been  taken 
of  this  by  his  opponents  to  embarrass  him  in 
so  many  ways  and  to  such  an  extent  that  he 
had  declared  that  he  would  never  again  make 
such  a  statement.  This  obviously  was  no  answer, 
and  seemed  to  be  an  evasion  of  the  point  in  issue. 
There  was  no  way  in  which  Roosevelt  as  a  private 
citizen  could  be  embarrassed  by  a  statement  that 
he  would  not  under  any  circumstances  be  a  can 
didate  for  the  Republican  nomination  for  the 
Presidency  in  1912  —  unless  he  intended  to  be  a 
candidate. 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  541 

It  was  at  this  time  and  in  this  connec 
tion  that  I  found  myself  beginning  to  be 
uncertain  as  to  Pinchot  and  Gardner.  Among 
all  of  my  supporters  none  had  been  more  in 
sistent  upon  my  becoming  a  candidate,  nor 
stronger  in  their  assurances  that  Roosevelt  was 
acting  in  perfect  good  faith.  But  we  were  con 
fronted  with  a  serious  situation  in  the  campaign. 
Whatever  Roosevelt's  real  position,  he  was 
certainly  taking  exactly  the  course  to  embarrass 
and  weaken  my  candidacy,  and  injure  the  whole 
Progressive  movement.  It  was  no  satisfaction 
to  our  correspondents,  whose  inquiries  multiplied 
every  day,  to  say  that  we  had  repeated  assur 
ances  from  Roosevelt  through  his  closest  friends 
that  he  would  not  be  a  candidate  against 
Taft.  The  reply  invariably  came  back, 
"Roosevelt  should  be  willing  to  say  this  plainly 
to  the  public  over  his  own  signature.  We  can 
make  no  progress  with  La  Follette's  candi 
dacy  so  long  as  we  are  constantly  confronted 
with  the  statement,  'Are  you  certain  that 
he  will  continue  as  a  candidate,  or,  if  we 
support  delegates  for  La  Follette,  will  they  be 


542  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

turned    over    to    Roosevelt    later?'      This   we 
must  know." 

While  we  were  in  this  baffling  and  distracting 
situation,  Houser  proposed  that  a  letter  be  writ 
ten  Roosevelt  which  would  compel  him  in  his 
answer  to  say  definitely  whether  he  would  under 
any  circumstances  be  a  candidate.  Houser  con 
tended  that  there  still  was  sufficient  uncertainty 
as  to  Progressive  success  to  deter  Roosevelt 
from  coming  out  as  an  open  candidate,  even  if 
he  were  tendered  the  united  Progressive  sup 
port,  and  that  a  letter  could  be  so  framed  as  to 
force  him  to  a  public  declaration,  which  would 
take  him  out  of  the  way,  and  leave  me  a  clear 
field.  I  answered  that  I  could  not  write  a  letter 
to  Mr.  Roosevelt  or  consent  that  one  be  written 
which  might  in  any  way  bind  me  to  support 
him  if  he  decided  to  become  a  candidate;  that 
I  felt  that  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  support 
Roosevelt  as  the  Progressive  candidate,  but  that 
it  could  do  no  harm  to  call  a  conference  to  be 
attended  by  the  Pinchots,  Gardner,  and  other 
supporters  to  discuss  the  matter;  and,  indeed, 
that  some  good  might  result  in  securing  an 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   191*  549 

expression  from  certain  of  these  men  upon  the 
subject. 

Such  a  conference  was  held  at  the  Pinchot 
residence,  in  Washington,  which  resulted  in 
two  or  three  tentative  drafts  of  letters  being 
made.  But  after  it  finally  became  apparent 
that  any  letter  requesting  him,  in  the  inter 
ests  of  the  Progressive  movement,  to  publicly 
announce  that  he  would  not  be  a  candidate, 
must  carry  with  it  a  give  and  take  proposal 
which  might  contingently  pledge  me  to  his  sup 
port  if  he  should  become  a  candidate,  I  put  an 
end  to  the  whole  matter,  repeating  in  substance 
what  I  had  said  whenever  there  had  been  any 
serious  discussion  of  Roosevelt  as  a  Progressive 
candidate  for  the  presidency:  that  I  had  always 
ef edited  him  with  having  rendered  an  important 

(  public  service  in  what  he  had  said  and  written  on  \f 
social  and  political  evils,  but  when  it  came  to 
doing  the  thing  necessary  to  be  done,  he  had 

kfaited^utteily:  that  the  time  for  preaching 
generalities  had  gone  by  and  the  time  to  do  the 
big  constructive  work  had  come;  that  Roosevelt 
had  never  shown  anv  constructive  abilitv:  that 


544  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

he  had  no  settled  convictions  upon  the  economics 
of  the  Progressive  movement,  and  therefore 
would  certainly  compromise  it  whenever  he 
thought  it  expedient;  that  this  would  defeat 
real  progress;  that  because  of  this  quality  of 
mind  and  this  element  in  his  character  the  Pro 
gressive  movement  had  made  more  progress  when 
he  was  out  of  the  country  than  in  all  the  seven 
years  he  was  President ;  that  I  was  certain  he  was 
wrong  on  the  question  of  the  valuation  of  railway 
property;  that  he  attached  no  importance  or 
very  little  importance  to  valuation  as  the  cor 
rect  basis  for  regulating  railway  rates  and  had  de 
clared  that  he  did  not  believe  there  was  any  water 
in  the  stocks  and  bonds  of  the  great  railway  sys 
tems;  that  if  he  were  President  again  I  feared  he 
would  confirm  or  bring  about  the  confirmation  of 
the  thousands  of  millions  of  fictitious  capitali 
zation  of  the  public  service  corporations  and  the 
industrial  combinations  of  the  country,  fastening 
forever  upon  the  American  people  the  burden  of 
the  present  high  prices ;  and  that  if  I  were  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  question  for  final  decision, 
I  was  not  prepared  to  say  that  I  would  accept 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  545 

him  as  a  Progressive  candidate,  or  could  even 
support  him  if  he  were  nominated. 

This  conference  was  not  in  vain.  It  served  to 
strengthen  my  doubts  as  to  certain  of  my  sup 
porters.  On  the  evening  of  the  same  day  I  re 
ceived  a  visit  from  Gifford  Pinchot,  who  called 
to  inform  me  that,  following  the  conference,  he, 
Gardner,  and  Medill  McCormick  had  conferred 
together,  and  that  he  desired  to  notify  me  that 
there  must  be  no  break  with  Roosevelt;  that 
should  one  come,  he  and  the  other  two  had  de 
cided  that  they  would  go  with  Roosevelt.  I  said 
to  Pinchot: 

"You  know  that  Roosevelt  favored  my  being 
a  candidate;  you  know  that  he  sent  Gilson 
Gardner  to  me  to  urge  me  to  be  a  candidate. 
Now  all  appearances  indicate  that  he  is  encour 
aging  the  use  of  his  name.  As  soon  as  my 
candidacy  began  to  take  on  proportions  that 
looked  like  success  there  was  what  seemed  to  me 
to  be  unmistakable  evidence  of  his  doing  every 
thing  in  his  power  to  block  it,  excepting  to  come 
out  openly  against  me.  Such  a  course  cannot 
fail  to  divide  the  Progressive  strength  and  seri- 


546  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

ously  injure,  if  not  destroy  for  the  time  being, 
the  whole  Progressive  movement." 

Pinchot  reiterated  the  statements  which  he 
had  made  before  that  Roosevelt  was  not  and 
would  not  be  a  candidate;  that  he  (Pinchot)  was 
still  absolutely  certain  that  if  nothing  were  done 
to  oppose  Roosevelt  he  would  ultimately  sup 
port  me  openly ;  that  I  had  no  right  to  question 
his  motives  or  his  good  faith.  I  asked  him  if, 
knowing  as  he  did,  the  relations  between  Roose 
velt  and  Garfield,  he  thought  Garfield  would  be 
found  taking  a  decided  position  regarding  this 
campaign  or  any  candidate  that  was  not  in  ac 
cord  with  Roosevelt's  wishes.  He  frankly  ad 
mitted  that  he  would  not  expect  Garfield  to  take 
any  important  action  in  this  campaign  against 
Roosevelt's  judgment.  I  then  reminded  him  that 
Garfield  had  gone  from  a  conference  with  Roose 
velt  directly  to  the  Progressive  meeting  in  Chi 
cago,  and  there,  standing  practically  alone,  had 
opposed  as  vigorously  as  he  could  in  the  execu 
tive  session  of  the  Committee  on  Resolutions  any 
endorsement  of  my  candidacy.  And  I  asked  him 
if  he  did  not  regard  that  as  a  plain  indication  of 


THE  CAMPAING  OF  1912  547 

Roosevelt's  position.  He  was  forced  to  admit 
that  it  had  that  appearance,  and  with  some  spirit 
added : 

"But  suppose  you  are  right  about  it,  and 
Roosevelt  comes  out  as  a  candidate,  what  can 
you  do?  You  must  know  that  he  has  this  thing 
in  his  own  hands  and  can  do  whatever  he  likes." 

I  said :  "I  grant  you  that  he  can  come  into  this 
campaign  as  a  candidate  if  he  chooses  to  do  so. 
There  is  no  way  to  prevent  that.  The  fact  that 
he  has  encouraged  my  candidacy  will  not,  I  am 
sure,  deter  him  if  he  thinks  at  any  time  the  oppor 
tunity  is  favorable.  But  let  me  serve  notice  on 
you  now,  that  if  he  does  so,  you  and  he  may 
understand  that  he  will  be  confronted  with  his  / 
record,  which  is  not  that  of  a  Progressive.  I  said, 
"I  know  Roosevelt's  strength,  and  I  know  his 
weakness.  He  has  never  been  subjected  to  criti 
cism  by  men  of  position  in  his  own  party.  His 
whole  course  on  the  tariff  during  the  seven  years 
he  was  President  proves  him  to  have  been  as 
much  a  standpatter  as  Aldrich  or  Cannon.  Now, 
I  am  not  seeking  any  break  with  Roosevelt.  I 
have  no  doubt  he  could  take  a  large  Progressive 


548  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF 

following  with  him  because  he  is  accepted  by 
many  people  unacquainted  with  the  details  of 
his  record,  as  a  Progressive.  He  is  probably  in  a 
position  to  divide  the  Progressives  and  destroy 
all  chance  of  success  in  this  campaign.  But  I 
say  now,  that  if  he  undertakes  such  a  course,  he 
will  surely  fail.  I  know  your  strong  friendship 
for  Roosevelt,  and  I  appreciate  the  support  you 
have  given  me.  I  sincerely  hope  you  are  not 
mistaken  when  you  say  that  Roosevelt  has  no 
intention  of  becoming  a  candidate  and  that  he 
will,  as  you  say,  ultimately  openly  and  actively 
support  me  for  the  nomination.  Surely  you  must 
see,  and  he  must  see,  that  the  public  is  warranted 
in  inferring  from  his  present  course  that  he  is  con 
templating  an  announcement  of  his  candidacy, 
and  that  introduces  confusion  and  uncertainty 
into  our  campaign  which  is  very  harmful.  But 
there  is  no  other  way  for  me  than  to  go  on  making 
the  best  fight  I  can  for  the  nomination."  With 
my  last  statement  Pinchot  apparently  agreed  and 
we  talked  for  some  time  further  on  the  details  of 
our  campaign. 

A  short  time  prior  to  this,  on  the  seventh  of 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  549 

December,  Pinchot  had  made  a  speech  before 
the  Chicago  Press  Club,  from  which  I  quote  the 
following: 

"If  Colonel  Roosevelt  had  not  made  his  recent 
statement,  and  I  am  in  a  position  to  know  that 
he  means  what  he  says,  he  might  have  been  the 
candidate.  I  do  not  assert  that  La  Follette  is 
yet  sure  of  the  nomination,  but  now  that  cir 
cumstances  have  made  Mr.  Taft's  renomination 
either  impossible  or  extremely  improbable,  the 
attention  of  the  country  is  turning  swiftly  and 
eagerly  to  Bob  La  Follette  of  Wisconsin." 

Just  what  occurred  between  Pinchot  and 
Roosevelt  after  this  speech  was  delivered  in 
Chicago  on  the  seventh,  and  before  it  was 
repeated  in  Boston  on  the  sixteenth  of  Decem 
ber  in  Tremont  Temple,  upon  the  occasion  of 
the  forming  of  a  Progressive  organization  for 
Massachusetts,  I,  of  course,  have  no  means  of 
knowing.  That  Pinchot  saw  Roosevelt  during 
this  interval  is  certain.  It  was  significant  that 
in  delivering  the  Chicago  Press  Club  speech  at 
the  Boston  meeting  Pinchot  omitted  from  the 
paragraph  above  quoted  the  statement  regarding 
Roosevelt's  not  being  a  candidate. 


550  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF 

Except  for  this  omission  he  gave  the  speech 
as  delivered  in  Chicago.  This  circumstance  is 
open  to  the  inference  that  Roosevelt  no  longer 
wanted  Pinchot  emphasizing  this  statement  by 
repetition. 

It  is  also  certain  that  Pinchot  saw  Roosevelt 
after  calling  on  me  that  evening  following  the 
conference  at  Pinchot's  house,  when  we  had  the 
very  plain  talk  just  detailed  concerning  Roose 
velt's  candidacy  and  my  purpose,  which  I  be 
lieve  was  communicated  to  Roosevelt.  Within 
forty-eight  hours  thereafter  there  came  a  press 
ing  invitation  over  the  long  distance  telephone 
for  Houser  and  Lenroot  to  meet  Roosevelt  with 
Gardner  and  Gifford  Pinchot  at  the  residence  of 
Amos  Pinchot  in  New  York,  on  Sunday,  Decem 
ber  17th.  It  is  clear  that  Roosevelt  was  still 
desirous  of  keeping  the  soft  pedal  on  his  candi 
dacy,  the  time  not  yet  having  arrived  when 
it  would  serve  his  purpose  to  break  in.  I 
declined  to  permit  Houser  to  go  (suggesting 
that  Kent  go  instead)  for  the  same  reason 
that  I  had  declined  to  permit  either  Pinchot 
or  Gardner  to  arrange  any  meetings  between 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  551 

Roosevelt  and  myself,  which  they  often  sought 
to  bring  about.  I  was  unwilling  that  there 
should  be  established  any  beaten  pathway 
between  my  headquarters  and  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  offices  in  New  York,  upon  which  at 
any  time  might  be  predicated  a  relation 
ship  committing  me  to  Roosevelt's  brand  of 
Progressivism. 

The  substance  of  Roosevelt's  statement  to 
these  men,  as  reported  to  me  by  Lenroot,  Kent, 
and  Gardner  immediately  upon  their  return  to 
Washington,  was  as  follows:  Roosevelt  said  he 
was  not  a  candidate,  but  he  should  never  again 
declare  that  he  would  not  be  a  candidate;  that 
he  did  not  think  he  ought  to  make  such  an  an 
nouncement  anyway,  because  if  it  were  found  in 
the  convention  that  I  could  not  beat  Taft,  it 
might  be  necessary  for  him  to  permit  his 
name  to  be  presented  to  the  convention;  that 
even  then  he  could  not  do  so,  if  upon  the  whole 
situation  it  appeared  that  he  might  be  beaten 
in  the  election;  that  he  could  not  afford  to  be 
beaten  in  the  election,  as  it  would  spoil  his  place 
in  history,  but  that  a  defeat  would  not  injure 


552  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

me;  that  I  should  go  ahead  with  the  campaign, 
and  if  I  could  be  nominated,  all  right;  that  if  it 
were  found  in  the  convention  that  I  could  not 
make  it,  then  he  might  come  in;  but  that  "under 
no  circumstances  ought  we  to  permit  the  wires 
to  be  crossed"  or  any  division  or  contention 
come  between  our  friends  in  the  campaign.  The 
North  Dakota  primary,  which  was  to  occur  on 
the  nineteenth  of  March,  was  then  brought  to 
his  attention  by  Lenroot,  who  pointed  out  the 
danger  of  his  (Roosevelt's)  name  being  placed 
on  the  ballot  there,  either  by  friends,  without 
his  consent,  or  by  Taft's  supporters,  for  the 
purpose  of  dividing  the  Progressive  vote,  thus 
enabling  the  reactionaries  to  carry  the  state, 
unless  he  would  (as  he  could  under  the  law) 
forbid  the  use  of  his  name.  To  this  suggestion 
of  Lenroot's  he  replied  that  he  had  not  thought 
of  that;  but  that  if  such  unwarranted  action 
were  taken  by  his  friends,  or  enemies,  division 
could  be  averted  by  an  understanding  that 
delegates  elected  fcfr  me  might  be  for  him  for 
second  choice,  in  the  event  that  his  name  had 
to  be  brought  forward  in  the  convention  to  pre- 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  553 

vent  Taft's  nomination,  and  it  appeared  he  could 
win  in  the  election. 

Gardner  expressed  great  satisfaction  at  the  re 
sult  of  the  interview,  contending  that  Roosevelt 
was  acting  in  perfect  good  faith;  that  he  was  not 
a  candidate  and  did  not  intend  to  be  a  can 
didate.  Kent  agreed  that  they  would  be  justi 
fied  in  reaching  that  conclusion  if  Roosevelt's 
word  could  be  relied  on;  but  thought  that  not 
withstanding  his  repeated  assurances  he  might 
be  expected  to  break  in  at  any  time  and  attempt 
to  carry  off  the  nomination;  that  he  certainly 
would  do  so  if  he  thought  he  could  get  away  with 
it  and  win  in  the  election  against  a  Democrat. 
After  Kent  and  Gardner  had  gone,  Lenroot 
gave  it  as  his  opinion  that,  notwithstanding  all 
Roosevelt  had  said,  he  was  at  that  very  moment 
a  candidate,  but  that  he  would  never  come  out 
in  the  open  until  he  had  secured  such  pledges 
of  support  as  would  insure  his  nomination  and 
also  felt  sure  that  he  could  win  in  the  election.  ; 

Arrangements  had  been  made  for  me  to  begin 
a  speaking  campaign  extending  through  the 
states  of  Ohio,  Michigan,  and  Illinois,  the  latter 


554  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

part  of  December  and  the  first  of  January. 
My  campaign  had  now  been  under  way  for  many 
months.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  letters  had 
been  written  and  great  quantities  of  documents 
and  speeches  distributed.  We  had  set  aside 
from  our  campaign  fund  a  sufficient  sum  to  print 
several  thousand  copies  of  a  document  review 
ing  my  public  record  as  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  for  six  years,  and  governor 
of  Wisconsin  for  three  terms,  giving  a  brief 
analysis  of  the  progressive  laws  enacted  and  the 
effect  of  the  administration  of  those  laws  upon 
the  public  service  and  other  corporations  of  the 
state,  and  also  covering  my  six  years  of  service 
in  the  Senate.  The  manuscript  for  this  docu 
ment  had  been  prepared  with  care,  since  it  was 
to  be  the  one  given  the  largest  general  distribu 
tion,  and  turned  over  to  the  publicity  depart 
ment  in  our  headquarters  to  be  printed.  I  had 
been  closely  occupied  with  my  official  duties 
and  the  writing  of  my  autobiography,  and  could 
only  occasionally  look  in  on  the  headquarters. 
Shortly  before  leaving  for  Ohio  to  begin  my  cam 
paign,  I  asked  for  some  printed  copies  of  this 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  555 

record,  and  was  surprised  to  find  that  it  had  not 
.  yet  been  printed.  As  Houser  was  also  leaving 
for  Ohio,  at  my  request  Congressman  John  M. 
Nelson  of  Wisconsin  consented  to  spend  such 
time  at  the  headquarters  as  could  be  spared 
from  his  work  in  the  House,  and  his  attention 
was  called  to  the  importance  of  printing  and  dis 
tributing  this  pamphlet  containing  my  record. 

Some  months  before  this  Medill  McCormick, 
with  whom  I  had  had  no  previous  acquaintance, 
calling  at  my  residence  to  see  me,  had  tendered 
his  services  to  aid  in  the  .campaign.  He  referred 
to  his  former  connection  with  the  Chicago  Trib 
une,  and  his  wide  acquaintance  with  newspaper 
publishers  throughout  the  country,  all  of  which 
he  mentioned  as  fitting  him  to  aid  in  promoting 
the  campaign.  He  said  if  his  services  were 
acceptable  he  wanted  me  to  give  him  a  letter 
to  Mr.  Houser  with  directions  that  he  be  pro 
vided  with  office  space  at  the  headquarters  for 
the  work  which  he  proposed  to  do.  He  stated 
that  he  had  no  active  business  engagements,  as 
he  had  been  recuperating  his  health  for  a  con- 
siderable  period  of  time,  and  was  therefore 


556  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

absolutely  free  to  lend  a  hand.  He  saw  Mr. 
Houser  and  soon  came  to  have  general  charge  of 
matters  connected  with  printing  and  publicity  at 
the  headquarters. 

After  I  had  left  to  fill  my  Ohio  engagements, 
Congressman  Nelson  found  that  the  printing  of 
the  manuscript  covering  my  public  record  was 
not  under  way.  In  the  course  of  a  conference 
relating  to  other  matters,  McCormick  incident 
ally  placed  in  Nelson's  hands  a  copy  of  what 
Nelson  supposed  was  the  approved  manuscript. 
It  developed,  however,  that  a  manuscript  written 
by  McCormick  himself  had  been  substituted  for 
the  original.  Upon  reading  the  document  which 
he  proposed  to  have  printed,  the  significance  of 
the  exchange  was  at  once  apparent  to  Nelson, 
who  went  directly  to  McCormick,  and  with  some 
warmth  inquired  why  a  eulogy  of  Roosevelt 
was  to  be  sent  out  ostensibly  in  the  interest  of 
La  Follette's  candidacy  from  our  headquarters, 
and  stated  very  positively  that  it  would  never 
be  done  with  his  consent  in  my  absence. 
McCormick  took  possession  of  the  manuscript 
and  subsequently  directed  the  clerk  to  have  it 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  557 

put  in  type,  telling  him  to  offer  the  printer  a 
bonus  of  two  hundred  dollars  for  rushing  the 
printing  of  the  document.  After  taking  this 
extraordinary  course  to  secure  the  immediate 
printing  of  his  manuscript,  McCormick  left  for 
Chicago,  in  order  to  be  on  the  ground  in  Illinois 
some  time  in  advance  of  my  entering  that  state 
to  fill  the  speaking  engagements  for  which  I  had 
been  scheduled.  From  Chicago  he  wired  Nelson, 
again  urging  that  the  printing  of  his  manuscript 
be  rushed.  Obviously  the  deep  cut  which  the 
expenditure  for  printing  this  document  would 
make  in  our  limited  campaign  fund  was  taken 
into  account,  and  it  was  assumed  that  when  once 
printed,  although  objectionable,  the  chances  were 
that  it  would  be  sent  out  instead  of  the  docu 
ment  originally  prepared,  as  we  could  not  afford 
to  print  both. 

McCormick's  manuscript  was  cleverly  writ 
ten.  It  highly  commended  my  work  and  my 
candidacy,  but  contained  flattering  references  to 
Roosevelt  so  framed  that,  if  it  had  been  sent 
out  from  my  headquarters,  it  would  have  com 
mitted  me  to  him  as  a  thoroughgoing  Progres- 


558  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

sive  in  the  event  that  he  later  came  out  as  a 
candidate.  The  loyalty  of  the  clerk,  however, 
saved  the  situation.  He  carried  the  manuscript 
to  Nelson,  and  informed  him  of  the  offer  which 
he  (the  clerk)  was  authorized  to  make  to  the 
printer  in  McCormick's  behalf.  It  is  to  be 
remembered  that  at  this  time  Houser  and 
I  were  both  absent  and,  except  for  Nelson, 
McCormick  was  the  one  man  in  authority 
at  my  headquarters.  Nelson  submitted  the 
McCormick  manuscript  to  Mrs.  La  Follette 
and  Professor  Commons,  who  chanced  to  be  a 
guest  of  ours  in  Washington  at  the  time.  They 
promptly  decided  that  it  should  not,  under  any 
circumstances,  be  issued,  and  proceeded  at 
once  to  have  printed  the  manuscript  which 
had  been  originally  prepared. 

Something  like  a  month  before  I  began  my 
speaking  campaign  in  Ohio  a  Progressive  organi 
zation  had  been  formed  in  that  state  of  which 
Judge  Wanamaker  of  Akron  was  elected  chair 
man,  and  John  D.  Fackler  of  Cleveland  sec 
retary.  At  the  time  of  the  formation  of  this 
Progressive  organization  it  had  been  proposed  to 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  559 

adopt  resolutions  declaring  for  my  candidacy. 
But  it  was  suggested  to  Houser,  who  was  pres 
ent,  that  it  would  be  more  effective  to  offer 
such  a  resolution  at  a  state- wide  conference 
which  it  was  proposed  should  be  held  in 
Columbus  on  the  first  of  January  following  the 
tour  through  the  state  which  I  was  expected 
to  make  during  the  last  days  of  December. 
Houser  reported  this  to  me  on  his  return  to 
Washington.  I  asked  him  if  it  were  not  possible 
that  work  was  being  done  for  Roosevelt  by  Wan- 
amaker  and  others  who  had  devised  this 
course,  and  whether  the  postponement  was  not 
for  the  purpose  of  enabling  them  to  develop 
enough  Roosevelt  sentiment  at  the  Ohio  state 
conference  to  defeat  a  resolution  endorsing  my 
candidacy.  He  assured  me  that  there  was  not 
the  slightest  ground  for  any  such  suspicion;  that 
Wanamaker  was  very  friendly  to  my  candidacy, 
though  it  was  true  that  he  had  been  at  one  time 
a  strong  Roosevelt  man. 

My  first  meeting  in  Ohio  was  at  Youngstown 
in  the  afternoon  of  December  27th.  Shortly 
before  going  to  the  opera  house,  where  I  was 


560  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

to  speak,  Judge  Wanamaker,  accompanied  by 
Mr.  Fackler,  called  on  me  at  my  rooms  in  the 
hotel.  I  had  previously  been  warned  to  be 
somewhat  on  my  guard  as  to  Wanamaker.  He 
had  called  to  suggest,  he  said,  that  in  the  course 
of  my  speech  it  would  be  a  fine  thing  if  I  would 
mention  the  names  of  former  Presidents  Gar- 
field,  McKinley,  and  Roosevelt,  as  it  always 
had  a  good  effect  upon  an  audience  and  tended 
to  promote  enthusiasm  to  refer  to  the  old-time 
Republican  leaders  of  the  party.  I  told  him 
that  I  was  not  much  given  to  talking  about 
individuals;  that  I  purposed  to  discuss  the 
present-day  evils  oppressing  the  people  and  the 
Progressive  remedies  which  we  proposed  to  meet 
existing  conditions.  After  some  further  talk  I 
was  escorted  to  the  opera  house.  Newspaper 
correspondents  representing  the  press  associa 
tions  and  many  of  the.  leading  papers  of  the 
country  were  present.  Indeed,  I  was  accom 
panied  throughout  this  campaign  tour  by  a  large 
corps  of  newspaper  men,  who  reported  very  fully 
all  of  my  meetings.  I  never  had  a  more  enthu 
siastic  reception  nor  a  more  responsive  audience, 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  561 

but  I  afterward  learned  that  cards  had  been  dis 
tributed  to  those  entering  on  which  was  printed 
in  black-faced  type,  "We  are  for  Roosevelt." 
I  do  not  know  whether  there  was  any  connec 
tion  between  this  circumstance  and  Judge 
Wanamaker's  suggestion  that  I  mention  the 
name  of  Roosevelt  in  the  course  of  my  speech, 
but  I  strongly  suspect  that  had  I  done  so  an 
attempt  would  have  followed  to  turn  the  meet 
ing  into  a  Roosevelt  demonstration  which  would 
have  been  reported  over  the  country,  giving  out 
the  impression  that  the  first  meeting  of  my  cam 
paign  had  developed  an  overwhelming  senti 
ment  for  Roosevelt  as  the  Progressive  candidate. 
The  meetings  in  Ohio,  Michigan,  and  Illinois, 
were  really  remarkable.  I  think  I  may  say 
that  never  in  the  heat  of  a  campaign  was  greater 
enthusiasm  witnessed,  and  still  the  primaries 
were  months  off.  Roosevelt  and  his  friends 
were  surprised  and  alarmed.  When  they  could 
neither  ignore  nor  disparage,  they  were  at  some 
pains  to  restrain  the  public  from  committing 
the  error  of  becoming  too  enthusiastic  about  the 
candidate. 


562  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

The  Outlook  of  January  13,  1912,  after  com 
menting  upon  the  size  of  my  audiences,  added, 
with  exquisite  refinement  of  analysis: 

'Whether  the  crowds  that  have  gathered  to 
hear  him  have  been  impelled  by  enthusiasm  for 
the  man,  belief  in  the  principles  he  advocates, 
or  a  desire  to  protest  against  present  political 
conditions,  it  would  be  hard  to  say;  probably  all 
three  in  varying  proportions." 

In  judging  of  Roosevelt's  conduct,  it  is  quite 
important  to  know  whether  he  entered  the  field 
because  my  candidacy  was  failing,  or  because  it 
was  succeeding.  That  is  the  test  of  the  man's 
sincerity  and  reliability  of  character  as  involved 
in  this  affair,  and  of  the  ultimate  effect,  for  good 
or  ill,  of  his  manifest  determination  to  take  con 
trol  of  the  Progressive  movement.  It  therefore 
becomes  an  essential  part  of  the  history  of  this 
whole  matter  to  study  step  by  step  the  progress 
or  failure  of  my  campaign  and  candidacy. 

The  first  practical  test  came  with  the  Chicago 
conference  of  October  16th.  The  second  and 
more  important  test  came  with  my  first  speaking 
campaign  through  these  three  states.  I  have 


.s.§ 

=  •§ 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  563 

said  that  I  never  witnessed  a  deeper  and  more 
intense  public  interest,  with  all  the  outward 
manifestations  of  enthusiasm  and  devotion,  than 
on  this  tour  through  Ohio,  Michigan  and  Illinois. 
But  I  do  not  rest  that  statement  alone  on  my 
own  impressions.  The  brief  excerpts  herewith 
added,  taken  from  extended  press  comments  by 
papers,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  unfriendly 
to  my  candidacy  and  the  Progressive  movement, 
are  typical  of  what  the  newspapers  reported,  and 
are  submitted  solely  that  the  reader  may  judge 
of  the  matter  for  himself. 

Of  the  Youngstown  meeting,  the  Philadelphia 
North  American  said: 

"It  was  an  impressive  opening,  and  one  which 
has  filled  his  admirers  in  Ohio  with  enthusiasm." 

The  Cincinnati  Enquirer  made  this  comment 
on  the  Cleveland  meeting: 

44  At  Gray's  Armory,  which  was  packed  to  the 
doors  half  an  hour  before  the  Senator's  arrival, 
a  band  burst  forth  with  the  national  anthem 
when  La  Follette  appeared.  For  several  min 
utes  Senator  La  Follette  was  deterred  from 
speaking  by  the  cheers  of  the  crowd." 


564  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

Of  the  Cleveland  meeting  the  Philadelphia 
North  American  said: 

"Senator  La  Follette  got  a  reception  here  to 
night  so  genuinely  enthusiastic,  so  demonstra 
tive  of  tremendous  public  interest  in  the  man 
and  the  Progressive  movement,  as  to  astonish  his 
friends  and  arouse  alarm  among  the  reactionary 
Republicans.  The  Cleveland  newspapers  de 
clared  to-day  that  nothing  like  this  was  ever 
known  in  Cleveland  before." 

The  same  paper  said  of  the  Toledo  meeting: 

"The  hall  in  which  Senator  La  Follette  spoke 
here  to-night  was  so  crowded  before  the  Senator 
arrived  that  the  police  took  charge  and  locked 
the  doors.  Two  thousand  and  more  persons 
were  turned  away.  It  was  the  most  enthusiastic 
audience  the  Senator  had  addressed,  and  cheered 
him  frequently." 

The  Cincinnati  Enquirer  gave  this  as  a  part  of 
its  report  of  the  Toledo  speech: 

"  If  any  one  had  gained  the  impression  that 
Republican  State  Chairman  Walter  F.  Brown's 
Progressive  organization  had  robbed  the  visit  of 
Senator  Robert  M.  La  Follette  of  any  of  its  en 
thusiasm,  it  was  dispelled  to-night  when  the 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  565 

doughty  Wisconsin  fighter    stepped   upon   the 
platform  in  Memorial  Hall. 

4 'The  cheering  of  more  than  three  thousand 
men  and  women  greeted  him,  and  this  demon 
stration  lasted  for  five  minutes.  There  were 
more  than  two  thousand  outside  the  hall  who 
failed  to  get  admittance.  They  stood  around 
for  half  an  hour  in  the  cold  in  efforts  to  make 
their  way  indoors." 

Referring  to  the  Dayton  meeting,  the  Phila 
delphia  North  American  said: 

"Senator  La  Follette  closed  the  most  re 
markable  day  he  has  spent  in  Ohio  with  a  meet 
ing  here  to-night  attended  by  five  thousand 
persons.  At  North  Baltimore  to-day  the  Sena 
tor  got  a  reception  which  astonished  him.  The 
.actual  number  of  men  present  exceeded  many 
times  the  voting  population  of  North  Baltimore 
and  must  have  pretty  well  exhausted  the  rural 
strength  of  both  sections  for  miles  around. 
Nothing  like  this  North  Baltimore  meeting  was 
ever  known  in  that  section  of  Ohio  in  any  politi 
cal  campaign." 

Of  this  same  meeting  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer 
said : 

"Senator  Robert  M.  La  Follette  of  Wisconsin 
talked  to  an  audience  here  to-night  that  com- 


566  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

fortably  filled  the  Memorial  Hall,  the  largest 
auditorium  in  the  city.  His  sentiments  were 
loudly  cheered  and  his  climaxes  evoked  tremen 
dous  applause. 

"Upon  his  entrance  upon  the  stage  he  was 
given  such  an  ovation  as  clearly  showed  his 
immense  audience  heartily  in  sympathy  with  the 
principles  he  is  representing. " 

My  last  meeting  in  Ohio,  at  Cincinnati  on 
Saturday  night,  December  30th,  was  referred  to 
by  the  Philadelphia  North  American  as  follows: 

"Senator  La  Follette  was  given  to-night,  in 
Cincinnati,  President  Taft's  home  town,  the 
most  enthusiastic  reception  accorded  him  since 
he  entered  the  state  of  Ohio.  As  he  proceeded 
with  his  speech  the  enthusiasm  increased,  and 
his  telling  points  were  greeted  with  cheers." 

In  Michigan  I  addressed  meetings  January  1st, 
2nd  and  3rd  at  Flint,  Bay  City,  Saginaw,  Grand 
Rapids,  and  Kalamazoo. 

The  following  from  the  Detroit  Free  Press 
are  typical  of  the  notices  given  my  meetings  in 
Michigan : 

"Flint,  Mich.,  January  1.  —  Senator  Robert 
M.  La  Follette  opened  the  New  Year  and  his 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  567 

campaign  in  Michigan  simultaneously  to-day 
with  a  meeting  in  the  auditorium  of  the  Masonic 
Temple.  He  was  greeted  by  an  audience  of 
about  1,200  persons,  which  included  a  consid 
erable  number  of  farmers  from  the  surrounding 
country.  The  Senator  was  accorded  a  hearty 
reception." 

"Bay  City,  Mich.,  January  1.  —  Senator  Rob 
ert  M.  La  Follette  addressed  three  thousand 
people  in  the  armory  here  this  afternoon.  The 
audience  was  enthusiastic  and  appreciative." 

Beginning  with  a  meeting  on  the  evening  of 
January  3rd,  in  Orchestra  Hall,  Chicago,  from 
which  more  than  three  thousand  people  were 
turned  away,  I  continued  on  through  the  state, 
concluding  a  series  of  seventeen  speeches  in 
Illinois  at  East  St.  Louis  on  the  evening  of 
January  5th. 

Respecting  the  Chicago  meeting,  I  quote  from 
the  Philadelphia  North  American: 

6 'The  public  interest  in  Senator  La  Follette 
and  the  hold  he  obtained  upon  his  audience  here 
are  causing  the  same  amazement  to  the  news 
papers  and  politicians  that  marked  his  entry  into 
Ohio.  Both  the  newspapers  and  the  politicians 


568  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

have  been  sneering  at  the  La  Follette  movement 
and  at  Senator  La  Follette  in  particular.  There 
was  plenty  of  progressive  sentiment  in  the  state, 
they  have  admitted,  but  they  have  been  em 
phatically  declaring  that  it  was  not  La  Follette 
sentiment,  and  if  it  were  to  assume  the  form 
of  hostility  to  Taft  and  the  Republican  adminis 
tration  it  would  be  found  to  be  Roosevelt  senti 
ment.  La  Follette's  trip  to-day  and  his  meeting 
in  Chicago  last  night  have  demonstrated  that  the 
voters  are  intensely  interested  in  the  Wisconsin 
Senator  and  that  they  believe  in  him  and  in  his 
doctrines.  The  comment  in  Chicago  was  that 
the  audience  which  greeted  and  cheered  Senator 
La  Follette  was  more  like  the  great  mass  meeting 
held  against  the  Allan  bill  than  any  political 
gathering  which  the  city  has  known  since  that 
time. " 

And  this  from  the  Chicago  Inter-Ocean: 

'The  meeting  last  night  was  the  largest  and 
surely  the  most  enthusiastic  political  gathering 
ever  held  in  Orchestra  Hall.  Every  seat  in  the 
hall  was  occupied  before  eight  o'clock. 

"Senator  La  Follette  had  a  friendly  audience 
to  talk  to.  They  frequently  interrupted  him 
with  applause.  When  he  rose  to  speak  he  was 
cheered  for  five  minutes.  He  talked  two  hours 
and  a  half  and  the  audience  seemed  willing  to 
remain  indefinitely." 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  569 

The  principal  meetings  in  Illinois  were  held  in 
the  following  cities: 

Chicago,  Joliet,  Morris,  Ottawa,  Streator,  La 
Salle,  Spring  Valley,  Peoria,  Bloomington,  De- 
catur,  Springfield,  East  St.  Louis,  and  Danville. 

The  Chicago  Tribune  said  this  of  the  Peoria 
meeting : 

44  Illinois  political '  jackpotters'  were  castigated 
without  mercy  to-day  by  Senator  Robert  M.  La 
Toilette  in  a  speech  at  Ottawa,  111. ,  the  home  of  Lee 
O'Neil  Brown,  as  well  as  in  speeches  at  other  cities. 

"The  Senator  completed  the  first  leg  of  the 
stiff  course  mapped  out  for  him  in  Illinois 
with  an  address  here  to-night  before  five  thou 
sand  persons. " 

And  this  of  the  Joliet  meeting : 

.  "The  demonstration  to-night,  as 
viewed  by  expert  politicians  in  the  second  city 
in  the  state,  was  a  record  breaker  for  enthusiasm 
and  cordiality. " 

The  following  from  the  Philadelphia  North 
American  is  characteristic  of  the  general  press 
comment : 

"At  Bloomington,  Springfield,  Decatur,  and 


570  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

finally  here  at  East  St.  Louis  he  was  greeted 
by  crowds  that  packed  every  available  space  in 
the  buildings  in  which  he  spoke.  It  was  a 
typical  La  Follette  welcome  in  every  town  where 
he  stopped.  The  men  who  came  to  hear  him 
were  earnest  Progressives,  and  his  utterances 
pleading  for  a  return  to  popular  rule  were  en 
thusiastically  applauded. " 

And  this  from  the  Chicago  Tribune: 

"Senator  La  Follette  was  tremendously 
pleased  with  his  reception  in  Illinois  to-day. 
He  let  it  be  known  that  he  feels  he  has  been 
received  most  kindly,  and  far  in  excess  of  the 
most  optimistic  predictions  of  his  friends  when 
the  Illinois  invasion  was  first  planned." 


"There  were  big  crowds  at  every  point 
he  touched  --  Bloomington,  Clinton,  Decatur, 
Springfield,  Carlinville,  Staunton,  Edwardsville, 
and  to-night  (at  East  St.  Louis)  an  audience 
which  tested  the  popularity  of  Senator  La 
Follette  in  the  face  of  allegations  from  local 
Progressive  managers  that  the  regular  organiza 
tion,  which  is  particularly  strong  here,  had  made 
efforts  to  throw  cold  water  on  the  meeting. " 

I  spoke  once  in  Indiana,  at  Terre  Haute,  on 
my  way  back  to  Washington. 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  571 

It  was  the  most  remarkable  series  of  mid 
winter  meetings  ever  held.  The  weather  was 
bitterly  cold ;  yet  there  were  immense  audiences 
everywhere  for  both  the  day  and  night  speeches, 
and  I  never  found  people  more  responsive  or 
more  deeply  and  earnestly  interested. 

My  tour  of  these  states  was  really  a  triumph. 
And  it  destroyed  the  effect  of  the  jack-in-the-box 
statements  emanating  from  New  York  regarding 
Roosevelt's  purposes,  which  had  produced  so 
much  confusion  in  the  field  work  that  was  being 
carried  on  from  the  headquarters. 

Realizing  the  importance  of  taking  advan 
tage  of  the  strong  current  which  had  set  in  for 
my  candidacy  following  the  meetings  in  Ohio, 
Michigan,  and  Illinois,  I  should  have  extended 
my  tour  into  Minnesota,  the  Dakotas,  Iowa, 
Nebraska,  and  Kansas  before  returning  to 
Washington,  excepting  for  the  fact  that  it  was 
necessary  to  return  to  Washington  on  account  of 
some  matters  pending  in  the  Senate,  and  to  fill 
engagements  in  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and 
New  Jersey  which  had  been  made  some  time 
before. 


572  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF 

I  had  been  back  in  Washington  but  a  few  days 
when  it  became  apparent  that  there  was  a  marked 
change  of  policy  on  the  part  of  Roosevelt  and 
his  friends.  Systematic  and  organized  efforts  of 
a  more  clearly  definite  character  were  being 
vigorously  put  forth  to  check  and  set  back  the 
rising  tide  of  sentiment  in  my  favor.  The 
Progressives  of  the  country  were  taking  my 
candidacy  too  seriously! 

At  the  very  time  when  my  meetings  were 
overtaxing  the  largest  auditoriums  that  could  be 
secured,  Roosevelt  wrote  a  letter  to  Governor 
Hiram  Johnson,  of  California,  who  had  been 
strongly  committed  to  my  candidacy,  in  \vhich 
1  he  stated  in  substance  that  it  was  necessary 
I  should  be  set  aside,  and  suggested  that  he 
(Johnson)  would  make  an  admirable  candidate 
for  Vice-President.  The  Vice-Presidential  bait 
was  dangled  before  the  eyes  of  the  governor 
on  a  separate  and  detached  sheet  of  paper  in 
the  form  of  an  unsigned  postscript.  John 
son  afterward  visited  Roosevelt  in  New  York, 
and  became  one  of  the  group  who  finally  suc 
ceeded  in  cornering  the  coy  and  diffident 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  573 

candidate  and  wringing  from  him  a  "reluctant 


consent. ' 


Dispatches  began  to  appear  in  the  papers  here 
and  there  quite  systematically,  and  from  signifi 
cant  sources,  asserting  that  Roosevelt  would  be 
a  candidate,  I  quote  from  one  dated  at  Pough- 
keepsie,  N.  Y.,  published  in  the  Philadelphia 
North  American,  January  1,  1912. 

"That  Theodore  Roosevelt  will  be  a  candi 
date  for  President  again  if  the  call  comes  strong 
enough  for  him  to  respond  is  the  statement 
made  to-day  by  John  Burroughs,  the  author- 
naturalist  in  an  interview  published  in  the 
Poughkeepsie  Courier.  Much  significance  is 
attached  to  this  prediction  on  account  of  Mr. 
Burroughs'  intimacy  with  Mr.  Roosevelt." 

On  January  1,  1912,  I  opened  my  campaign 
in  Michigan.  On  the  same  day  the  much  talked 
of  Ohio  state  conference  was  held  at  Columbus. 
It  had  been  announced  several  weeks  before. 
Ninety -two  of  the  leading  Progressives  of  the 
state  were  present.  In  this  meeting,  for  the  first 
time  and  in  an  open  and  formal  way,  the  friends 
of  Roosevelt  disclosed  their  real  purpose.  Wai- 


574  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF 

ter  F.  Brown,  reactionary  boss  and  chairman  of 
the  Republican  State  Central  Committee,  was 
present,  working  actively  in  support  of  Roose 
velt,  and  to  prevent  any  endorsement  of  my  can 
didacy  by  the  Ohio  conference.  BrowTn  is  to 
Ohio  politics  exactly  what  Platt,  Quay,  Henry 
C.  Payne,  and  men  of  that  type  were  to  the 
political  affairs  of  their  time.  The  morning  of 
the  conference  he  spent  much  time  with  Pinchot 
and  Fackler. 

It  had  been  accepted  that  a  formal  endorse 
ment  of  my  candidacy  would  be  adopted  in  this 
meeting.  But  a  small  minority,  led  by  Pinchot, 
Garfield,  Wanamaker,  and  Brown,  appealed  to 
those  in  attendance  not  to  adopt  a  resolution 
making  formal  declaration  for  any  candidate  for 
President,  urging  that  the  friends  of  Roosevelt 
should  not  be  antagonized.  Pinchot  especially 
gave  assurance  that  they  would  later  all  be 
found  supporting  my  candidacy.  He  stated 
further  that  he  knew  from  his  repeated  con 
ferences  with  Roosevelt  that  he  was  not  a  candi 
date,  and  expressed  the  strongest  belief  that 
Roosevelt  himself  would  be  found  before  long 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  575 

openly  supporting  me.  My  friends  attending 
upon  that  conference,  who  were  eager  to  endorse 
me,  outnumbered  the  friends  of  Roosevelt  eight 
to  one.  But  yielding  to  Pinchot,  and  the  appeal 
for  harmony,  the  following  resolution  was  finally 
agreed  to: 

"We  are  opposed  to  the  renomination  of 
President  Taft.  We  hereby  declare  it  to  be  the 
determined  purpose  of  the  Ohio  Progressive 
Republican  League  to  work  in  harmony  and 
unison  to  nominate  a  Progressive  Republican  for 
President,  recognizing  as  fellow  Progressives  all 
who  hold  the  principles  for  which  we  stand, 
whether  they  be  for  the  presidential  nomi 
nation  of  Robert  M.  La  Follette  or  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  or  any  other  Progressive  Repub 
lican. 

"We  assert  the  essential  unity  of  the  Pro 
gressive  movement  throughout  the  entire  state 
and  nation. 

"We  favor  the  election  of  delegates  who  will 
favor  the  nomination  of  a  candidate  who  will 
fully  represent  the  Progressive  principles." 

Speaking  for  these  resolutions,  Pinchot  said: 

"I  believe  most  intensely  that  it  would  be 
foolish  not  to  crystallize  the  Roosevelt  senti- 


570  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

ment  and  the  Progressive  sentiment  of  all  other 
men,  whatever  candidates  they  may  prefer,  so 
that  we  can  elect  delegates  to  the  Chicago 
convention  who  will  vote  for  the  Progressive 
candidate,  which  we  know  will  be  Mr.  La  Fol- 
lette." 


The  convention  then  voted  81  to  11  in  favor  of 
a  resolution  as  a  "  personal  expression  "  of  the 
delegates,  naming  me  as  "the  living  embodi 
ment  of  the  principles  of  the  Progressive  move 
ment  and  the  logical  candidate  to  carry  them  to 
successful  fruition." 

January  5th,  Garfield  made  a  hurried 
trip  to  New  York,  and  had  an  interview 
with  Roosevelt  at  a  private  club.  He  was  in 
a  position  to  report  on  the  great  stirring  that 
Ohio  had  just  been  given,  and  the  clever  work 
done  by  himself,  Pinchot,  Wanamaker,  and 
Walter  Brown,  the  machine  boss,  in  averting  an 
affirmative  endorsement  of  my  candidacy  by 
the  Ohio  conference  at  Columbus  three  days 
before. 

Pinchot,  immediately  after  the  Ohio  con 
ference,  went  to  Battle  Creek,  Mich.,  for  a 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  577 

brief  rest,  and  on  January  3rd  the  newspapers 
generally  published  the  following: 

"Gifford  Pinchot,  in  an  interview  given  out 
here  to-day,  denied  that  he  had  made  any  state 
ments  in  speeches  or  interviews,  that  Theodore 
Roosevelt  had  told  him  that  he  would  not  accept 
the  presidential  nomination  if  it  were  tendered. 
'I  know  nothing  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  affairs, 
either  as  to  whether  he  would  accept  the  nomi 
nation,  or  whether  he  believes  he  could  be 
elected." 

Just  one  month  before,  he  had  said  in  his 
speech  to  the  Chicago  Press  club: 

"If  Colonel  Roosevelt  had  not  made  his  recent 
statement,  and  I  am  in  a  position  to  know  that 
he  means  what  he  says,  he  might  have  been  the 
candidate." 

And  only  two  days  before  he  had  said  in  his 
speech  before  the  Ohio  conference  that  he  was 
advocating  the  plan  which  he  contended  would 
secure  the  election  of  "delegates  to  the  Chicago 
convention  who  will  vote  for  the  Progressive 
candidate  which  we  knoiv  will  be  Mr.  La  Fol- 
lette." 


578  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

But  Progressive  sentiment  was  crystallizing 
about  my  candidacy  so  rapidly  that  the  near 
friends  of  Roosevelt  who  had  been  professing 
loyalty  to  me,  while  at  heart  for  him,  were  being- 
forced  by  developments  more  and  more  to  dis 
close  their  real  design.  And  we  were  fast  ap 
proaching  a  time  when  Roosevelt  himself  would 
have  to  show  his  hand. 

On  the  nineteenth  of  January  Mr.  Homer 
Mann,  chairman  of  the  Fifth  District  Congres 
sional  Committee,  called  a  meeting  of  party 
workers  together  in  Kansas  City,  to  whom  he 
said: 

"Some  time  ago  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Roosevelt 
telling  him  that  it  was  impossible  to  carry  the 
state  unless  he  again  assumed  the  leadership  of 
the  party.  I  got  a  reply.  I  am  not  at  liberty  to 
give  the  answrer  now,  but  it  suffices  to  say  that 
this  meeting  was  called." 

I  had  spoken  many  times  in  Kansas.  Some 
three  years  before  Bristow  became  a  candidate 
for  the  United  States  Senate  I  had  urged  my  audi 
ences  to  elect  him  to  succeed  Senator  Long,  and 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  579 

in  my  meetings  throughout  the  state  had  re 
viewed  Long's  senatorial  record.  Finally,  when 
Bristow  did  become  a  candidate,  I  had  gone  to 
Kansas  on  the  urgent  call  of  William  Allen  White 
to  speak  for  Bristow.  I  had  every  reason  to  be 
lieve  that  White,  who  is  very  strong  in  Kansas, 
was  supporting  my  candidacy. 

On  the  ninth  of  January  a  letter  was  received  at 
our  headquarters  in  Washington  from  Rodney 
A.  Elward  of  Castleton,  Kan.,  an  old  Wiscon 
sin  University  friend  and  supporter  of  mine,  and 
at  present  one  of  the  regents  of  the  Kahsas  State 
University.  In  this  letter,  Elward  said: 

"I  received  a  letter  from  William  Allen  WTiite 
this  morning  saying  he  is  for  La  Follette." 

This  letter  of  White's  must  have  been  written 
a  day  or  two  before  and  about  the  time  I 
had  concluded  my  tour  of  Ohio,  Michigan,  and 
Illinois. 

I  was  amazed  to  see  it  followed  on  the  tenth 
of  January  by  an  editorial  in  White's  paper,  the 
Emporia  Gazette,  concluding  an  appeal  to  Pro 
gressives  to  organize  for  Roosevelt,  with  the 
words,  "Roosevelt  or  bust!" 


580  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

What  came  to  White  in  that  brief  interval  to 
change  his  attitude,  I  do  not  know. 

The  day  after  the  publication  of  Mr.  White's 
"Roosevelt  or  bust"  editorial,  Frank  A.  Mun- 
sey,  owner  of  several  newspapers  and  periodi 
cals,  very  much  interested  in  the  United  States 
Steel  Corporation,  and  one  of  Roosevelt's 
financial  backers  and  intimates,  published  in 
large  type  a  double  column  signed  editorial  on 
the  front  page  of  his  papers,  of  which  the  follow 
ing  is  the  concluding  paragraph: 

"Situated  as  he  is,  my  guess  is  that  Mr. 
Roosevelt  is  quite  content  to  let  political  matters 
shape  themselves  up  as  they  will.  If  no  call 
comes  to  him  to  lead  the  fight,  he  will  keep  right 
on  having  a  good  time  with  his  work,  as  he  is 
now  doing.  But  if  the  call  does  come,  he  will 
buckle  on  his  armor  and  'go  to  it'  with  all  his 
old-time  impetuosity  and  energy." 

In  view  of  Mr.  Munsey's  relations  with  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  and  the  financial  backing  which  he 
furnished  to  promote  Roosevelt's  campaign,  it 
will  hardly  be  questioned  that  the  publication  of 
this  editorial  was  inspired. 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  581 

Two  days  later  the  story  that  a  campaign  for 
Roosevelt  was  being  quietly  financed  by  George 
W.  Perkins  of  the  Steel  Trust,  and  that  Ormsby 
McHarg  had  been  sent  into  the  southern  states 
to  "see"  the  right  parties,  was  printed  as  coming 
from  Indianapolis,  and  widely  copied  in  New 
York,  Washington,  and  other  papers.  It  pro 
duced  a  great  sensation.  When  the  newspaper 
reporters  saw  Roosevelt  at  the  Outlook  office 
to  interrogate  him  on  the  subject,  they  experi 
enced  considerable  difficulty.  The  session  was 
very  brief,  and  was  reported  by  one  of  them  as 
follows : 

"Mr.  Roosevelt's  jaws  snapped  shut  as  he 
listened,  and  when  they  opened  it  was  to  say, 
'I  will  not  discuss  pipe  dreams  from  Indian 
apolis  or  anywhere  else.  There  are  depths  of 
tomfoolery  that  I  can't  notice.' ' 

But  the  financing  of  Roosevelt's  campaign  by 
Morgan's  friend  Perkins  was  a  subject  of  too 
great  public  interest  to  be  disposed  of  as  "  tom 
foolery."  And  the  watchful  newspaper  corre 
spondents  were  soon  able  to  report  that  private 
meetings  and  conferences  were  being  held  be- 


582  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

tween  Perkins  and  Roosevelt.  The  support  of 
Morgan's  man,  Perkins,  recalled  to  the  public 
mind  Roosevelt's  great  service  to  the  Steel  Trust 
in  permitting  it  to  swallow  up  its  principal  rival, 
the  Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Company,  and,  con 
sequently,  the  demand  for  something  definite  as 
to  Perkins'  financial  backing  of  Roosevelt's  can 
didacy  became  so  insistent  that  it  could  not  be 
silenced  by  brushing  it  aside  as  a  "pipe  dream." 
Some  one  had  to  speak,  and  the  speaking  part  was 
assigned  to  Perkins,  who  issued  a  "  frank  state 
ment"  announcing  that  he  was  supporting  Roose 
velt  because  "they  looked  at  public  questions  in 
the  same  way . ' '  When  taken  red  handed  the  very 
boldness  of  an  open  admission  is  the  best  and 
only  recourse.  Before  many  weeks  all  reserve  as 
to  Perkins,  Munsey,  and  the  Steel  Trust  was 
thrown  aside,  and  later  men  most  prominently 
connected  with  the  Harvester  Trust  were  likewise 
openly  supporting  the  Roosevelt  candidacy 
That  Wall  Street  interests  generally  were  in  ac 
cord  was  soon  well  understood  among  those 
who  noted  the  kindly  references  to  Roose 
velt  and  the  difference  in  expression  when- 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  583 

ever  his  name  was  mentioned  around  the  Stock 
Exchange. 

While  the  whole  plan  in  the  light  of  subse 
quent  events  became  perfectly  plain,  so  cleverly 
was  it  all  managed,  so  rapidly  were  the  scenes 
shifted,  so  swiftly  did  the  unauthorized  an 
nouncements  and  the  qualified  denials  follow  one 
upon  the  other,  that  doubt  and  confusion  pre 
vailed  everywhere,  outside  of  the  little  circle  of 
which  Roosevelt  was  the  centre.  One  day  it  would 
seem  certain  that  my  candidacy  had  already  been 
betrayed  by  the  friends  of  Roosevelt  who  were 
in  my  own  organization;  the  next  day  I  would  be 
assured  that  he  would  announce  his  refusal  to  be 
a  candidate;  that  there  would  be  no  division  in 
the  Progressive  ranks  and  that  his  supporters 
would  be  my  supporters.  But  events  were 
driving  ahead  rapidly.  With  each  day  the 
double  play  became  more  difficult. 

Finally,  on  the  14th  of  January,  we  were  sur 
prised  at  our  headquarters  to  receive  a  visit  from 
John  D.Fackler,  our  campaign  manager  for  Ohio, 
who  said  he  came  with  a  proposition  from  Walter 
Brown  and  Dan  Hanna  for  a  wrorking  combina- 


584  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

tion  of  La  Follette  and  Roosevelt  forces.  They 
proposed  that  the  campaign  be  carried  on  in 
Ohio  with  La  Follette  as  the  candidate,  but  that 
in  each  congressional  district  one  Roosevelt  dele 
gate  should  be  placed  upon  the  ballot  with  one 
La  Follette  delegate.  Roosevelt  was  not  to  be 
known  as  an  open  and  avowed  candidate.  The 
inducement  was  held  out  that  they  would  fur 
nish  all  the  money  for  the  campaign  in  Ohio,  but 
they  stipulated  that  the  La  Follette  Progressive 
literature  which  had  been  supplied  from  Wash 
ington,  and  was  then  on  hand  at  our  Ohio  head 
quarters  in  considerable  quantity,  should  be 
destroyed,  and  no  more  sent  out  into  the  state. 
Fackler  was  told  that  I  would  enter  into  no 
deal  or  combination  with  the  men  who  stood  for 
the  very  things  in  politics  to  which  I  was  op 
posed,  and  that  I  would  consent  to  no  arrange 
ment  which  involved  either  coupling  Roosevelt's 
candidacy  with  mine,  or  conducting  a  campaign 
in  which  Roosevelt  delegates  should  be  put  on  a 
ticket  under  cover  of  my  candidacy.  Fackler 
professed  to  agree  with  the  position  which  I  took, 
but  he  said  in  the  course  of  the  conversation  that 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  585 

it  had  been  very  strongly  intimated  to  him  if  the 
Brown-Hanna-Roosevelt  scheme  could  be  car 
ried  out  he  (Fackler)  could  have  the  nomination 
to  Congress  from  that  district.  He  protested 
that  he  had  no  desire  to  go  to  Congress  and  that 
such  an  offer,  if  squarely  made,  would  have  no 
influence  with  him.  He  said  several  times  that 
when  he  reached  his  office  on  Monday  morning 
he  would  find  these  men  there  with  their  check 
or  the  money  ready.  Fackler  returned  to  Ohio 
with  directions  to  say  to  Brown  and  Hanna 
that  their  offer  was  rejected;  that  we  should 
continue  to  make  a  straight-out  fight  for  Pro 
gressive  principles  and  for  my  candidacy,  and 
that  we  would  enter  into  no  combination  of  any 
character  whatsoever. 

A  few  days  later  Fackler,  accompanied  by 
Walter  Brown,  visited  Roosevelt  at  the  Out 
look  office  in  New  York.  He  returned  to  Ohio 
by  way  of  Washington,  calling  upon  Houser 
at  the  headquarters,  where  he  gave  positive 
assurance  of  his  continued  loyalty,  explaining 
his  visit  by  saying  that  he  had  gone  to  see 
Roosevelt  at  the  suggestion  of  Brown,  but  that 


586  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

the  conference  was  confidential,  and  that  he  was 
not  at  liberty  to  state  what  Roosevelt  had  said 
to  him.  Fackler  subsequently  went  over  to  the 
support  of  Roosevelt,  taking  with  him  as  much 
of  my  organization  as  he  could  influence.  He 
was  given  the  support  of  the  Roosevelt  organiza 
tion  as  a  candidate  for  the  congressional  nomi 
nation  in  the  Cleveland  district,  but  was  defeated 
in  the  primary. 

We  now  began  to  have  serious  differences  with 
Gifford  Pinchot.  He  insisted  that  the  Brown- 
Hanna  combination  should  be  made,  and  that 
the  La  Follette  organization  in  Ohio  should  put  a 
Roosevelt  delegate  on  the  ticket  in  each  con 
gressional  district.  My  answer  was  that  my 
candidacy  should  not  be  made  a  shield  and  cover 
for  Roosevelt;  that  if  he  was  to  be  a  candidate, 
he  should  come  out  in  the  open;  that  I  would 
never  consent  to  be  a  stalking  horse  for  Roose 
velt  or  any  other  man;  that  for  many  years  I  had 
fought  a  clean,  straight  fight  for  definite  Progres 
sive  principles;  that  I  had  been  urged  by  Pro 
gressives  to  stand  as  the  presidential  candidate 
for  that  reason;  that  I  would  not  compromise 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  587 

these  principles  or  permit  my  name  to  be  used  in 
any  way  to  secure  delegates  for  any  other  candi 
date;  that  he  (Pinchot)  understood  all  this  before 
he  contributed  in  support  of  my  campaign,  and 
that  as  I  had  repeatedly  asserted,  this  would  be 
my  position  through  to  the  end. 

I  was  now  to  be  reminded  that  "nothing 
weighs  lighter  than  a  promise."  On  the  twentieth 
of  January  Cummins  announced  his  candidacy 
for  the  presidential  nomination.  It  was  little 
more  than  eight  months  since  the  conference  of 
Progressives  in  Senator  Bourne's  committee 
room,  on  the  thirtieth  of  April,  when  Cummins 
had  said,  "I  shall  not  be  a  candidate.  It  is  out 
of  the  question."  To  Houser,  in  explaining  his 
action  in  coming  out  as  a  candidate,  Cummins 
stated  that  it  was  his  purpose  to  hold  Iowa 
from  going  to  Taft.  Houser  protested  and 
urged  him  to  keep  his  promise.  But  he  issued 
his  announcement.  In  the  end  he  was  only 
able  to  get  ten  of  the  twenty-six  delegates  from 
the  state  of  Iowa  to  the  national  convention. 
Judged  by  his  estimates  of  what  I  would  be  able 
to  do  in  that  state  and  from  the  correspondence 


588  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

at  our  headquarters,  I  could  scarcely  have  done 
worse. 

I  had  been  announced  to  speak  in  Carnegie 
Hall  on  the  twenty-second  of  January.  A  few 
days  before  this  meeting  Pinchot  proposed  that 
on  the  occasion  of  my  visit  to  New  York  a 
luncheon  should  be  arranged  at  Amos  Pinchot 's 
house,  where  Roosevelt  and  I  should  meet.  As  I 
had  now  become  convinced  that  Roosevelt  was  an 
active,  though  not  an  open,  candidate,  and  was 
only  waiting  to  create  a  situation  which  would 
seem  to  compel  his  candidacy,  I  would  not  con 
sent  to  be  drawn  into  any  situation  which  would 
lead  the  public  to  believe  that  there  was  a  com 
bination  between  us,  or  which  could  thereafter  be 
interpreted  to  mean  that  I  accepted  Roosevelt  as 
representing  real  Progressive  principles.  For 
some  days  New  York  dispatches  had  appeared 
in  Roosevelt's  interest,  reiterating  the  statement 
that  (to  quote  from  one  of  them)  "  there  will  be 
absolutely  no  rivalry  between  Senator  La  Fol- 
lette  and  Theodore  Roosevelt  in  case  the  latter 
should  become  a  candidate.  .  .  .  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  becoming  apparent  that  should 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  589 

Roosevelt  decide  that  he  will  not  accept  the 
nomination  under  any  circumstances,  then  the 
real  Roosevelt  strength  will  undoubtedly  go  to 
Senator  La  Follette." 

The  time  had  not  quite  arrived  openly  to 
desert  me.  My  campaign  work  and  that  of  our 
headquarters  was  effective  in  arousing  and 
organizing  Progressive  sentiment,  and  it  was 
still  a  part  of  the  Roosevelt  plan  to  wear  down 
my  strength  and  entice  away  my  active  sup 
porters,  one  after  another,  so  that  when  the  right 
time  came  for  a  final  stroke  my  situation  would 
be  such  that  I  would  either  go  in  and  help  pro 
mote  the  Roosevelt  campaign  or  strike  my 
colors  and  retire  from  the  field.  When  Fackler 
was  given  his  specific  instructions,  directing 
that  the  Ohio  campaign  must  have  no  connec 
tion  whatever  with  those  who  were  supporting 
any  other  candidate,  the  same  instructions  in 
effect  were  sent  to  my  headquarters  in  Chicago. 
Medill  McCormick  was  now  spending  most  of 
his  time  in  and  about  the  Chicago  headquarters. 

I  had  already  seen  enough  to  make  me  wholly 
distrustful  of  McCormick's  loyalty,  and  was 


590  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

apprehensive  that  he  was  doing  everything  in 
his  power  to  undermine  and  weaken  my  organi 
zation.  I  was  therefore  determined  to  take  such 
steps  as  would  force  the  Roosevelt  men  in  my 
camp  to  show  their  hands.  I  was  resolved  to 
seek  no  quarrel,  but  I  would .  have  no  more 
double  work  going  on  in  my  headquarters. 
This  had  the  effect  of  forcing  the  Roosevelt  men 
in  our  organization  to  make  their  stand,  and 
about  January  18th  Pinchot,  acting  upon  his 
own  motion,  called  a  conference  of  those  who 
had  contributed  to  support  my  campaign,  and 
such  others  as  he  saw  fit  to  invite,  to  meet 
at  the  Washington  headquarters.  There  were 
present  at  that  meeting  Gifford  and  Amos 
Pinchot,  Congressman  Kent,  Walter  S.  Rogers 
(secretary  to  Charles  R.  Crane),  who  were  the 
principal  contributors;  Houser,  Congressman 
Lenroot,  my  private  secretary,  John  J.  Han- 
nan,  and^as  I  now  remember  it,  Gilson  Gard 
ner.  Medill  McCormick  was  there.  McCor- 
mick  came  on  from  Chicago,  I  presume, 
on  Gifford  Pinchot .'s  invitation.  I  declined  to 
participate  in  the  conference  so  long  as  McCor- 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  591 

mick  was  present  and  he  later  withdrew.  Francis 
J.  Heney  happened  to  be  in  Washington  at  this 
time.  He  was  then  one  of  my  warmest  sup 
porters  and  strongly  opposed  to  Roosevelt's 
becoming  a  candidate.  After  I  learned  that 
Finchot  had  called  the  conference  I  requested 
Heney  to  attend  and  he  did  so. 

Gifford  Pinchot  was  insistent  that  the  cam 
paign  should  be  conducted  according  to  the 
scheme  suggested  by  Walter  Brown  and  Dan 
Hanna,  continuing  the  campaign  for  me  as  the 
Progressive  candidate,  but  putting  Roosevelt 
delegates  on  the  ticket  with  the  La  Follette 
delegates  in  Ohio  and  elsewhere. 

In  this  conference  Heney  vigorously  opposed 
Gifford  Pinchot's  plan.  He  pointed  out  the 
rank  injustice  of  the  course  Roosevelt  was  pur 
suing,  and  emphasized,  as  did  others,  the  un 
certainty  of  Roosevelt's  position  on  Progressive 
prmcTples.  He  argued  that  it  was  altogether 
too  late  for  Roosevelt  to  come  into  the  cam 
paign;  that  months  before  he  had  personally 
interviewed  Roosevelt  on  the  subject  of  his 
candidacy;  that  Roosevelt  had  said  that  he  was 


592  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

not  a  candidate;  that  Heney  had  replied  to 
Roosevelt  that  it  was  not  enough  for  him  to  say 
that  he  was  riot  a  candidate;  that  the  Progres 
sives  of  California  and  other  states  had  a  right 
to  know  whether  he  \vould  under  any  circum 
stances  become  a  candidate,  and  that  thereupon 
Roosevelt  had  said  most  emphatically  and 
positively  that  he  would  not  under  any  cir 
cumstances  become  a  candidate.  Gifford  Pin- 
chot  reiterated  his  oft-repeated  statement  that 
Roosevelt  was  not  and  would  not  be  a  candi 
date,  but  contended  that  we  could  elect  some 
delegates)  by  putting  Roosevelt  men  on  the 

/tickets,  and  thus  get  some  votes  which  otherwise 
4.  might  not  be  cast  for  us.  Lenroot  expressed 
the  opinion  that  as  a  matter  of  political  expe 
diency  such  a  course  would  be  advantageous. 
Houser  said  that  while  he  had  been  favorably 
inclined  toward  the  plan  as  a  matter  of  political 
tactics,  still  he  did  not  think  we  could  stand 

/  for  any  combination  with  the  representatives 

,   of  the  Steel  Trust,  who  were  evidently  behind 

\Roosevelt. 

As  I  was  firmly  against  this  course  Pinchot 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  593 

was  voted  down.  Amos  Pinchot  strongly  sup 
ported  my  position  throughout  the  conference, 
and  at  its  conclusion  pointedly  remarked  to  his 
brother: 

"Gifford,  I  think  you  will  sleep  better  to-^ 
night  now  that  it  is  settled  that  we  are  not  to 
be    tied   up    with    representatives    of   machine  / 
politics  and  the  Steel  Trust." 

Amos  Pinchot  said  to  me  just  before  going 
into  the  conference  in  excusing  his  brother's 
insistence  that  I  should  consent  to  the  combi 
nation  : 

"I  agree  with  you  perfectly  that  there  must  be 
no  combination  with  Roosevelt.  I  have  no 
doubt  whatever  about  his  having  been  an  active 
candidate  all  along,  but  I  am  sure  Gifford  is 
honest  in  the  position  he  is  taking.  Roosevelt 
has  always  been  able  to  pull  the  wool  over  his 
eyes." 

Gifford  Pinchot  apparently  acquiesced  in  the 
decision  of  the  conference,  and  I  was  gratified 
to  believe  that  the  whole  matter  was  definitely 
and  finally  settled. 

A  few  days  later,  on  the  twenty-second  of  Jan- 


594  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

uary,  I  went  to  New  York  to  fill  an  engagement 
at  Carnegie  Hall.  Gifford  Pinchot  presided  at 
the  meeting,  which  was  an  exceptional  success. 
A  representative  audience  filled  the  great  hall, 
and  when  I  arrived  I  found  the  streets  packed 
for  blocks  by  people  unable  to  gain  admission. 
I  was  obliged  to  address  a  large  overflow  meeting 
before  entering  the  hall.  Of  this  meeting  the 
New  York  Times  said: 

"It  was  the  Wisconsin  candidate's  first  ap 
pearance  in  New  York  and  the  reception  ac 
corded  him  he  himself  said  was  as  great  as  any 
he  ever  received  in  his  home  state.  Carnegie 
Hall  never  held  a  bigger  nor  a  more  enthusiastic 
audience." 

The  Sun  said: 

"Carnegie  Hall  was  packed  at  eight  o'clock, 
and  the  reserves  of  two  police  stations  were 
called  out  to  take  care  of  the  crowds  that  were 
jammed  into  Seventh  Avenue  north  and  south 
of  the  hall." 

Roosevelt  did  not  attend  my  meeting.  He 
was,  as  I  was  informed,  at  a  dinner  given  in  his 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  595 

honor  on  that  evening  by  one  of  the  Progressive 
clubs  of  the  city.  Several  members  of  this  club 
called  on  me  later  to  express  regret  that  this 
dinner  could  not  have  been  given  at  some  other 
time,  and  to  say  that  it  would  have  been  so 
arranged  but  that  no  other  date  was  acceptable 
to  Roosevelt. 

Though  my  New  York  friends  were  jubilant 
over  my  campaign  opening  there  and  the  prog 
ress  made  in  other  states,  I  found  them  very 
fearful  that  Roosevelt  was  determined  to  "  break 
in,"  as  they  expressed  it. 

There  was  still  no  open  declaration  from  him, 
but  it  was  understood  that  leading  Progressives 
were  being  summoned  to  confer  with  him  and 
give  out  newspaper  interviews  of  the  "  pressing 
demands"  in  their  respective  states  that  he 
should  become  a  candidate. 

Upon  my  return  to  Washington  I  was  sur 
prised  to  find  that  Gifford  Pinchot  had  called 
still  another  conference  of  the  same  men  to 
meet  at  our  headquarters.  The  date  which 
he  fixed  for  this  conference  was  January  29th, 
and  he  had  been  urgent  that  Mr.  Crane 


596  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF 

should  be  present.  I  learned  that  he  had  seen 
Roosevelt  just  before  my  New  York  meet 
ing.  I  felt  that  this  conference  would  be  the 
last  which  Pinchot  would  attend  if  he  failed  in 
his  plan,  and  I  understood  why  he  was  so  deter 
mined  that  Crane  should  be  present.  The  two 
Pinchots  and  Kent  had  each  furnished  a  con 
tribution  of  $10,000,  all  of  which  had  been  con 
tributed  months  before,  and  which  had  been 
substantially  expended  by  this  time.  Crane 
was  contributing  $5,000  a  month,  and  had 
agreed  to  continue  his  payments  monthly  until 
the  time  of  the  meeting  of  the  National  Con 
vention  in  Chicago.  If  Crane  could  be  drawn  to 
the  support  of  Pinchot's  position,  it  was  Pin- 
chot's  reasoning,  as  I  believe,  that  I  would  be 
compelled  to  masquerade  as  the  candidate 
behind  whom  Roosevelt's  campaign  could  be 
prosecuted,  without  his  being  forced  to  announce 
his  candidacy  until  the  convention  should 
meet,  when  it  would  be  sprung,  the  convention 
stampeded,  and  the  nomination  "forced"  upon 
him. 

This  final  conference  met  pursuant  to  Pin- 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OP  1912  597 

chot's  call  at  my  Washington  headquarters  on 
Monday  afternoon,  January  29th.  There  were 
present  Gifford  and  Amos  Pinchot,  Charles  R. 
Crane,  and  his  secretary,  Walter  S.  Rogers, 
the  manager  of  our  Chicago  headquarters; 
Professor  Charles  E.  Merriam,  Louis  D.  Bran- 
deis,  William  Kent,  Congressman  Lenroot,  Gil- 
son  Gardner,  Angus  McSween,  the  Washington 
correspondent  of  the  Philadelphia  North  Ameri 
can,  Houser  and  Hannan.  Medill  McCormick 
was  again  brought  into  this  conference  from 
Chicago,  uninvited,  unless  by  Pinchot.  Their 
discussion  consumed  the  afternoon,  and  was 
marked  by  plainness  of  speech  all  around.  It 
was  evident  from  the  beginning  that  the  Roose 
velt  element  represented  in  the  group  had  come 
prepared  to  force  the  issue.  It  was  manifest  to 
them  that  my  candidacy  could  no  longer  serve 
the  Roosevelt  interest,  and  they  submitted  an 
alternative  in  writing  which  I  quote: 

(1)  That  La  Follette  shall  withdraw  in  favor 
of  Roosevelt,  with  reservations  as  to  differences 
of  opinion,  and  continue  to  stump. 

(2)  That  La  Follette   shall  withdraw,   but 


598  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

not  in  favor  of  anybody,  and  continue  to  stump, 
leaving  the  individuals  of  the  group  to  take 
what  course  they  choose. 

In  order  to  insure  the  fullest  and  freest  dis 
cussion,  I  did  not  myself  enter  the  room  where 
the  conference  was  being  held  until  they  had 
about  exhausted  the  subject  under  consideration. 
Moreover,  I  had  been  resolved  upon  my  course 
from  the  beginning,  and  even  if  I  stood  alone 
I  knew  I  must  go  straight  ahead.  When  they 
had  threshed  the  whole  matter  out  among 
themselves  I  was  invited  to  come  in.  It 
was  then  about  five  o'clock.  I  had  just  been 
called  to  the  telephone  by  a  representative  of 
the  Associated  Press,  who  informed  me  that  a 
Chicago  paper  was  running  a  story  that  after 
noon  stating  in  effect  that  Medill  McCormick, 
Crane,  Pinchot,  and  others  were  holding  a  con 
ference  that  day  at  the  Washington  headquar 
ters,  and  that  a  statement  would  be  issued  as  a 
result  of  the  conference  announcing  my  with 
drawal.  It  would  appear  that  information 
must  have  been  furnished  to  the  Chicago  paper 
regarding  the  conference  before  McCormick  left 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  599 

Chicago.  I  immediately  called  Houser  out  of 
the  conference,  and  caused  to  be  issued  by  him 
the  following  statement: 

' '  Washington,  D.  C.,  January  29,  1912.- 
Once  for  all  I  want  to  settle*  the  rumors  in  cir 
culation  that  Senator  La  Follette  contemplates 
withdrawing  as  a  presidential  candidate.  Sena 
tor  La  Follette  never  has  been  and  is  not  now  a 
quitter.  When  he  entered  the  contest  for  the 
nomination  he  assured  those  who  induced  him  to 
become  a  candidate  that  he  would  go  through  to 
the  end,  and  that  is  his  determination.  He  will 
be  there  until  the  gavel  falls  in  the  convention 
announcing  the  nominee.  Senator  La  Follette 
is  making  this  campaign  to  promote  the  princi 
ples  in  a  national  way  for  which  he  has  stood  and 
fought  in  his  own  state  and  in  the  United  States 
Senate.  He  will  make  a  campaign  in  every 
state  to  elect  delegates  pledged  to  those  princi 
ples,  and  to  his  candidacy  as  the  Republican 
nominee  for  President,  first,  last,  and  all  the  time. 
"(Signed)  WALTER  L.  HOUSER." 

Before  giving  out  this  statement,  I  called  Mr. 
Crane,  Professor  Merriam,  and  Mr.  Rogers  out 
of  the  conference,  and  informed  them  of  the 
Chicago  story  which  I  believed  had  been  given 
out  by  McCormick  before  leaving  Chicago;  that 


600  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

the  Associated  Press  had  called  for  confirmation 
or  denial,  and  that  I  had  prepared  the  only 
statement  which  I  could  consent  to  have  issued 
on  the  subject.  I  knew  from  what  Houser  had 
reported  as  to  the  proceedings  in  the  conference 
that  the  Pinchots,  Gardner,  and  possibly  some 
others,  had  already  decided  to  desert,  and  I  sub 
mitted  this  statement  to  Mr.  Crane.  I  had  never 
for  one  moment  believed  that  he  would  abandon 
me.  He  is  a  man  of  few  words,  but  with  great 
constancy  of  purpose.  He  had  been  in  the 
conference  with  the  Pinchots  for  hours,  and  sub 
ject  to  as  strong  an  appeal  as  it  was  possible  for 
them  to  make,  and  I  watched  his  face  with  keen 
interest  as  he  read  the  statement.  There  was 
no  change  of  expression.  He  returned  it  to 
Houser,  saying  very  quietly: 

"I  think  that  statement  is  all  right." 
So  I  knew  that  I  would  at  least  have  one  strong 
supporter  to  the  end.  With  Crane,  Merriam,  and 
Rogers  I  then  joined  the  conference.  Pinchot  at 
once  entered  upon  a  review  of  what  he  had  said 
to  the  conference  regarding  my  candidacy  and 
that  of  Roosevelt.  In  order  to  bring  the  discus  - 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  601 

sion  directly  to  the  point,  I  called  up  the  alter 
native  statement  which  Houser  informed  me 
had  been  under  discussion,  regarding  my  with-; 
drawal  in  favor  of  Roosevelt.  I  told  them  that 
I  had  but  one  answer  to  make;  that  I  had  never 
played  that  kind  of  politics  and  never  would ;  that 
I  did  not  recognize  Roosevelt  as  standing  for 
Progressive  principles;  that  I  had  resisted  from 
the  time  of  its  proposal  every  effort  on  the  part 
of  Pinchot  and  others  to  make  me  serve  as  a  stalk 
ing  horse  for  Roosevelt's  candidacy;  that  I  had 
not  sought  the  support  of  Pinchot  or  any  one  else, 
and  had  not  made  myself  the  Progressive  candi 
date;  that  they  had  joined  in  urging  me  to  stand; 
that  I  had  made  a  clean  fight  for  principle  which 
had  tremendously  strengthened  the  Progressive 
movement  all  over  the  country,  but  now,  when 
there  seemed  to  be  some  prospect  of  success,  it 
was  proposed  to  turn  everything  over  to  Roose 
velt;  that  if  this  were  done  the  campaign  would 
be  converted  into  a  contest  to  nominate  Roose 
velt  rather  than  advance  a  cause;  principles 
would  be  compromised  or  wholly  ignored,  and 
the  Progressive  movement  suffer  untold  injury; 


602  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

that  Pinchot  had  pledged  his  support  to  me  as 
long  as  I  continued  a  candidate;  that  I  could 
not  prevent  his  withdrawal  of  that  support,  but 
that  I  would  say  nothing  which  he  could  con 
strue  to  be  a  consent  or  release  from  his  obli 
gation  to  continue  his  support.  The  Pinchots, 
Gardner,  and  McCormick  then  withdrew,  but 
Crane,  Merriam,  Rogers,  Kent,  Lenroot,  and 
all  of  the  others  assured  me  that  they  would  go 
through  with  me  to  the  end.  It  was  a  great  relief 
to  have  it  settled  and  over  with.  For  weeks  the 
strain  had  been  severe.  The  Pinchots,  however, 
still  hesitated  to  make  any  statement  respecting 
the  course  which  they  proposed  to  take. 

A  few  days  later  (February  2nd)  I  attended  the 
annual  banquet  of  the  Periodical  Publishers' 
Association  at  Philadelphia,  an  engagement 
which  had  been  made  some  weeks  before.  In 
my  speech  I  dealt  with  the  centralized  control 
over  the  nation's  affairs,  and  concluded  with  the 
statement  that  this  control  by  great  special 
interests  extended  even  to  the  newspapers  and 
was  rapidly  reaching  out  for  the  magazines. 
This  occasion  offered  the  opportunity  to  say 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  603 

things  which  seemed  to  me  supremely  important. 
I  understood  perfectly  that  it  must  subject  me  to 
criticism  but  felt  that  that  ought  not  to  deter  me. 
I  spoke  as  the  publisher  of  a  magazine  to  pub 
lishers.  I  was  speaking  to  men  who  knew,  many 
of  them  from  bitter  experience,  the  powerful 
influence  which  the  modern  business  system 
exerts  directly  and  indirectly  over  the  publisher 
through  the  centralized  control  of  great  national 
advertising  a'gencies.  The  representatives  of  the 
largest  publishing  companies  present  understood 
the  subtle  working  out  of  plans  by  which  these 
immense  advertising  agencies  have  become  the 
publicity  agents  of  great  business  interests,  the 
placing  of  whose  national  advertising  they  con 
trol;  and  that  the  placing  or  withholding  of 
advertising  by  these  agencies  with  a  given  publi 
cation,  determines  whether  that  publication  shall 
fail  or  succeed.  It  lies  in  the  power  of  these 
agencies  to  serve  their  clients  by  giving  their 
advertisements  to  publications  which  are  well 
behaved  toward  the  great  interests  and  to  starve 
out  those  publications  which  freely  criticise 
privileged  business;  or,  in  other  words,  to  make 


604  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

the  stand-pat  publication  prosper  and  the  Pro 
gressive  publication  fail. 

I  print  here  exactly  what  I  said  upon  this 
subject: 

"I  have  sketched  the  growth  and  power  of  the 
great  interests  that  to-day  control  our  property 
and  our  governments.  I  have  shown  how 
subtle  and  elusive,  yet  relentless,  they  are. 
Rising  up  against  them  is  the  confused  voice  of 
the  people.  Their  heart  is  true  but  their  eyes 
do  not  yet  see  all  the  intricate  sources  of  power. 
Who  shall  show  them?  There  are  only  two 
agencies  that  in  any  way  can  reach  the  whole 
people.  These  are  the  press  and  the  platform. 
But  the  platform  in  no  way  compares  with  the 
press  in  its  power  of  continuous  repeated  in 
struction. 

"One  would  think  that  in  a  democracy  like 
ours,  seeking  for  instruction,  able  to  read  and 
understand,  the  press  would  be  their  eager  and 
willing  instructors  —  such  was  the  press  of 
Horace  Greeley,  Henry  Raymond,  Charles  A. 
Dana,  Joseph  Medill,  and  Horace  Rublee. 

"But  what  do  we  find  has  occurred  in  the  past 
Few  years  since  the  money  power  has  gained 
control  of  our  industry  and  government?  It 
controls  the  newspaper  press.  The  people  know 
this.  Their  confidence  is  weakened  and  de 
stroyed.  No  longer  are  the  editorial  columns  of 
newspapers  a  potent  force  in  educating  public 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  605 

opinion.  The  newspapers,  of  course,  are  still 
patronized  for  news.  But  even  as  to  news,  the 
public  is  fast  coming  to  understand  that  where  - 
ever  news  items  bear  in  any  way  upon  the  con 
trol  of  government  by  business,  the  news  is 
colored;  so  confidence  in  the  newspaper  as  a 
newspaper  is  being  undermined. 

"  Cultured  and  able  men  are  still  to  be  found 
upon  the  editorial  staffs  of  all  great  dailies,  but 
the  public  understands  them  to  be  hired  men 
who  no  longer  express  honest  judgments  and 
sincere  conviction,  who  write  what  they  are  told 
to  write,  and  whose  judgments  are  salaried. 

"To  the  subserviency  of  the  press  to  special 
interests  in  no  small  degree  is  due  the  power  and 
influence  and  prosperity  of  the  weekly  and 
monthly  magazines.  A  decade  ago  young  men 
trained  in  journalism  came  to  see  this  control  of 
the  newspapers  of  the  country.  They  saw  also 
an  unoccupied  field.  And  they  went  out  and 
built  up  great  periodicals  and  magazines.  They 
were  free. 

"Their  pages  were  open  to  publicists  and 
scholars;  and  liberty  and  justice  and  equal 
rights  found  a  free  press  beyond  the  reach  of 
the  corrupt  influence  of  consolidated  business 
and  machine  politics.  We  entered  upon  a 
new  era. 

:<The  periodical,  reduced  in  price,  attractive 
and  artistic  in  dress,  strode  like  a  young  giant 
into  the  arena  of  public  service.  Filled  with  this 
spirit,  quickened  with  human  interest,  it  assailed 


606  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF 

social  and  political-  evils  in  high  places  and  low. 
It  found  the  power  of  the  public  service  corpo 
ration  and  the  evil  influences  of  money  in  the 
municipal  government  of  every  large  city.  It 
found  franchises  worth  millions  of  dollars  se 
cured  by  bribery;  police  in  partnership  with 
thieves  and  crooks  and  prostitutes.  It  found 
juries  'fixed'  and  an  established  business  plying 
its  trade  between  litigants  and  the  back  door  of 
blinking  justice. 

"It  found  Philadelphia  giving  away  fran 
chises,  franchises  not  supposedly  or  estimated 
to  be  worth  $2,500,000,  but  for  which  she  had 
been  openly  offered  and  had  refused  $2,500,000. 
Milwaukee  they  found  giving  away  street  car 
franchises  worth  $8,000,000  against  the  protests 
of  her  indignant  citizens.  It  found  Chicago 
robbed  in  tax-payments  of  immense  value  by 
corporate  owners  of  property  through  fraud  and 
forgery  on  a  gigantic  scale;  it  found  the  aldermen 
of  St.  Louis  organized  to  boodle  the  city  with  a 
criminal  compact,  on  file  in  the  dark  corner  of  a 
safety  deposit  vault. 

"The  free  and  independent  periodical  turned 
its  searchlight  on  state  legislatures,  and  made 
plain  as  the  sun  at  noonday  the  absolute  control 
of  the  corrupt  lobby.  It  opened  the  closed 
doors  of  the  secret  caucus,  the  secret  committee, 
the  secret  conference,  behind  which  United 
States  Senators  and  Members  of  Congress  be 
trayed  the  public  interest  into  the  hands  of  the 
railroads,  the  trusts,  the  tariff  mongers,  and  the 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  607 

centralized  banking  power  of  the  country.  It 
revealed  the  same  influences  back  of  judicial 
and  other  appointments.  It  took  the  public 
through  the  great  steel  plants  and  into  the  homes 
of  the  men  who  toil  twelve  hours  a  day  and  seven 
days  in  the  week.  And  the  public  heard  their 
cry  of  despair.  It  turned  its  camera  on  to  the 
mills  and  shops  where  little  children  are  robbed 
of  every  chance  of  life  that  nourishes  vigorous 
bodies  and  sound  minds,  and  the  pinched  faces 
and  dwarfed  figures  told  their  pathetic  story  on 
its  clean  white  pages. 

"The  control  of  the  newspaper  press  is  not  the 
simple  and  expensive  one  of  ownership  and 
investment.  There  is  here  and  there  a  'kept 
sheet'  owned  by  a  man  of  great  wealth  to  further 
his  own  interests.  But  the  papers  of  this  class 
are  few.  The  control  comes  through  that  com 
munity  of  interests,  that  interdependence  of 
investments  and  credits  which  ties  the  publisher 
up  to  the  banks,  the  advertisers  and  the  special 
interests. 

"We  may  expect  this  same  kind  of  control, 
sooner  or  later,  to  reach  out  for  the  magazines. 
But  more  than  this.  I  warn  you  of  a  subtle 
new  peril,  the  centralization  of  advertising  that 
will  in  time  seek  to  gag  you.  What  has  occurred 
on  a  small  scale  in  almost  every  city  in  the 
country  will  extend  to  the  national  scale,  and 
will  ere  long  close  in  on  the  magazines.  No  men 
ever  faced  graver  responsibilities.  No  men  have 
ever  been  called  to  a  more  unselfish,  patriotic 


608  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

service.  I  believe  that  when  the  final  test  comes 
you  will  not  be  found  wanting;  you  will  not 
desert  and  leave  the  people  to  depend  upon  the 
public  platform  alone,  but  you  will  hold  aloft  the 
lamp  of  Truth,  lighting  the  way  for  the  preser 
vation  of  representative  government  and  the 
liberty  of  the  American  people." 

But  I  entirely  underestimated  the  character 
and  extent  of  the  criticism  which  I  called  down 
upon  myself.  I  was  a  candidate  and  the  inter 
ests  did  not  overlook  their  opportunity.  Sensa 
tional  accounts  of  this  speech  and  its  reception 
were  published  throughout  the  country,  and  at  the 
same  time  equally  sensational  and  false  reports 
were  spread  concerning  my  physical  condition. 

It  is  true  that  I  was  not  feeling  as  fit  as  usual. 
As  on  one  or  two  previous  occasions  I  had  over 
taxed  my  strength.  But  each  time  a  very  brief 
rest  sufficed  to  restore  me  to  full  vigor;  as  it  did 
in  this  instance.  I  attended  this  gathering  with 
some  reluctance,  knowing  that  to  speak  there 
would  make  demands  upon  me  which,  at  that 
time,  I  could  ill  afford.  I  had  just  returned 
from  a  speaking  trip,  part  of  which  was  made 
under  most  trying  circumstances,  and  all  of 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  609 

which  taxed  my  reserve.  Besides,  I  was  seri 
ously  troubled  at  the  evidences  I  had  discovered 
at  headquarters  of  the  studied  undermining  of 
my  candidacy  by  some  of  my  supporters. 
Added  to  this,  the  doctors  had  decided  that  our 
little  daughter  must  undergo  an  operation,  the 
seriousness  of  which  could  not  be  foretold,  on 
the  morning  following  the  Publishers'  banquet. 
For  every  reason  I  felt  that  I  ought  not  to  go, 
but  was  reluctant  to  break  my  engagement.  I 
went,  arriving  after  the  dinner.  It  was  very 
late  when  I  began  to  speak.  I  was  not  at  my 
best  and  did  not  at  once  get  hold  of  my  audience. 
It  was,  I  do  not  doubt,  entirely  my  own  fault  — 
but  I  determined  to  make  them  hear  me  to  the 
end.  In  my  effort  to  do  so  I  talked  too  long 
without  realizing  it.  I  went  home,  really  ill 
from  exhaustion,  but  was  at  the  hospital  early 
next  morning  when  my  daughter  went  under  the 
surgeon's  knife.  After  that,  with  a  short  rest,  I 
was  able  to  go  on  with  my  work  as  usual,  and 
into  the  campaign  in  North  Dakota,  disproving 
the  stories  circulated,  not  only  at  that  time  but 
since,  as  to  my  having  broken  down.  I  went 


610  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

through  a  campaign  carrying  me  from  coast  to 
coast,  making  nearly  two  hundred  speeches, 
and  have  not  lost  a  moment's  time  since.  I 
mention  this  incident,  not  because  it  is  impor 
tant  of  itself,  but  for  the  reason  that  it  was  given 
a  bearing  upon  the  campaign  by  those  who  were 
quick  to  use  it  as  a  cover  under  which  they  felt 
they  could  plausibly  make  their  switch  to  Roose 
velt.  The  men  who  had  already  abandoned  my 
candidacy,  because  I  could  not  stand  as  a  shield 
for  another,  or  agree  to  any  deals  or  combina 
tions  that  would  confuse  the  issue  or  mislead  the 
people,  seized  upon  what  they  were  pleased  to  call 
my  "  shattered  health"  as  an  excuse  for  their  action. 
Following  the  session  of  the  Wisconsin  legisla 
ture  of  1901, 1  was  made  the  object  of  a  somewhat 
similar  attack  for  the  purpose  of  demoralizing 
my  support.  Combined  with  the  incessant  work 
accompanying  the  legislative  session  came  the 
abandonment  of  the  fight  by  men  in  whose  zeal 
and  devotion  I  had  found  courage  and  inspira 
tion,  and  finally  the  defeat  of  the  legislation  I 
had  hoped  to  see  enacted.  In  1901,  however, 
as  a  result  of  the  strain,  my  health  was  actually 


V 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  611 

impaired;  but  the  nature  of  my  illness  was 
at  that  time  likewise  maliciously  misrepresented, 
because  my  unfitness  was  the  thing  most  de 
sired  by  those  who  were  opposed  to  the  Progres 
sive  movement,  and  particularly  to  my  part  in  it. 

Again  and  again  the  friends  who  were  sup 
porting  my  candidacy  had  heard  my  interpre 
tation  of  the  fight;  and  they  appreciated  the 
spirit  in  which  I  had  consented  to  make  it.  I 
had  not  gone  into  it  for  the  purpose  of  beating 
Taft  as  an  individual.  I  had  not  gone  into  it  as  a 
political  game  to  be  played  according  to  the  rule 
of  expediency.  I  had  campaigned  only  for  sup-  ) 
porters  willing  to  make  the  fight  for  principlefv 
ready  to  win,  or  to  lose,  if  need  be,  in  the  inter 
est  of  a  cause.  My  whole  public  life  had  been 
given  to  a  struggle  in  which  countless  battles 
were  necessarily  lost  in  the  course  of  the  warfare, 
so  a  temporary  defeat  meant  less  to  me,  perhaps, 
than  to  men  unseasoned  in  strife. 

As  before  stated,  the  Pinchots  and  Gilson 
Gardner  definitely  withdrew  from  my  support 
at  the  conference  held  at  my  headquarters  in 
Washington,  January  29th,  but  apparently  found 


612  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

some  embarrassment  in  announcing  the  fact. 
The  critical  attitude  of  the  press  following  the 
Publishers'  banquet  of  February  2nd  opened  the 
way.  It  furnished  a  pretext  for  the  desertion 
which  it  was  now  plain  to  be  seen  had  been  under 
consideration  for  a  long  time.  They  waited  for 
two  weeks  after  the  final  conference  in  which 
they  definitely  withdrew  their  support,  before 
making  any  public  announcement.  Then  there 
was  published  in  the  Philadelphia  North  Amer 
ican  the  following,  giving  the  condition  of  my 
health  as  the  reason  for  the  action  taken: 

LA   FOLLETTE   DROPPED    BY   PINCHOT    FOR 
PRESIDENCY 

Senator's  Condition  Makes  His  Candidacy  Impos 
sible  Declares  Pinchot  —  Roosevelt  Boom  in 
Minnesota 

JERSEY  CITY,  New  Jersey, 

February  10,  1912. 
Hugh  T.  H albert,  St.  Paul,  Minnesota: 

In  my  judgment  La  Follette's  condition  makes  further 
serious  candidacy  impossible.  GIFFORD  PINCHOT. 

The  above  is  the  wording  of  a  telegram  read 
last  night  at  a  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Directors 
of  the  Minnesota  Republican  League  called  to 


.3 

w    1 

II 

a    s 

H      i 


s  § 


H    -2 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  613 

consider  the  probable  withdrawal  of  Senator  La 
Follette  as  a  candidate  for  the  Republican  nomi 
nation  for  President.  Mr.  Halbert,  a  member 
of  the  Board,  made  a  speech  insisting  that  La 
Follette  was  out  of  the  running,  and  that  the 
league  should  turn  its  support  to  Roosevelt. 
The  committee,  however,  refused  to  take  this 
course,  and  adopted  resolutions  pledging  unani 
mous  support  to  La  Follette.  Mr.  Halbert  then 
resigned  from  the  Board.  He  has  for  seven  years 
been  President  of  the  Saint  Paul  Roosevelt  Club. 

On  the  eighteenth  of  February  Pinchot  pub 
lished  a  formal  statement  announcing  that  he  had 
withdrawn  his  support  from  me  and  would  there 
after  advocate  Roosevelt's  nomination,  this  time 
setting  up  the  claim  that  my  candidacy  had  only 
been  a  sort  of  temporary  convenience.  I  quote 
from  this  statement  the  following : 

"Senator  La  Follette's  candidacy  was  under 
taken  for  two  clear  and  specific  purposes :  first  to 
hold  the  Progressives  together  as  an  effective 
fighting  force,  and  second,  to  prevent  the  renom- 
ination  of  a  reactionary  Republican  for  the  presi 
dency." 

If  this  statement  were  true,  then  the  cam 
paign  which  we  had  been  making  for  months  to 


614  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

induce  support  of  my  candidacy  was  plainly  a 
fraud  upon  those  who  were  led  to  believe  that 
I  was  a  candidate  in  good  faith. 

In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  refer  to 
the  Call  for  me  to  become  a  candidate,  which 
was  signed  by  a  number  of  Progressive  Repub 
lican  Senators  and  Congressmen,  but  which  was 
not  published  because,  as  before  stated,  Cummins 
did  not  sign  it,  giving  as  his  reason  for  with 
holding  his  signature  that  he  did  not  think  it 
the  best  way  to  inaugurate  my  candidacy. 
Pinchot  wrote  in  part  and  approved  in  its 
entirety  that  document,  from  which,  passing 
over  a  review  of  my  public  services,  I  quote 
the  following: 

"This  seems  to  us  a  very  splendid  record,  a 
record  of  patient,  fearless  and  effective  public 
service,  achieved  in  the  face  of  almost  insur 
mountable  difficulty  and  opposition. 

"To  guide  the  Progressive  movement,  a  chief 
executive  is  required  whose  life  has  been  devoted 
to  the  task  of  freeing  our  political  institutions 
from  the  control  of  organized  wealth,  who  under 
stands  the  problem  which  is  before  the  country, 
who  has  proved  by  what  he  has  done  that  he 
is  able  to  deal  with  it,  and  who  will  use  the  power 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  615 

of  his  great  office  in  the  interests  of  the  people. 
The  people  are  progressive  and  it  is  necessary, 
just,  and  right  that  their  chief  magistrate  should 
be  progressive  also.  If  the  republican  voters 
of  the  country  could  make  their  wishes  effec 
tive  at  this  time,  we  believe  that  your  record 
as  citizen,  governor,  representative  and  senator, 
your  unswerving  fidelity  to  principle  and  your 
long,  fearless,  and  successful  leadership  would 
cause  them  to  choose  you  as  their  next  presi 
dential  nominee.  We  therefore  earnestly  urge 
you  to  permit  your  name  to  be  presented  as  a 
candidate  for  the  Republican  nomination  for 
President  of  the  United  States." 

It  would  seem  that  at  this  time,  when  I  was 
being  urged  to  become  a  candidate,  and  by  none 
more  strongly  than  Pinchot,  it  was  with  a  view 
of  nominating  and  electing  me  President,  rather 
than  drafting  me  into  a  temporary  service  as  a 
sort  of  political  " minute  man"  to  hold  the  field 
until  a  favorable  opportunity  should  present 
itself  for  bringing  out  the  real  candidate. 

Pinchot's  announcement  of  his  support  of 
Roosevelt,  in  view  of  their  intimate  relations, 
was  everywhere  accepted  as  the  immediate  fore 
runner  of  a  declaration  of  candidacy  by  Roose 
velt  himself 


616  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

The  time  had  come  for  them  to  act  openly. 
Roosevelt  organizations  made  their  appearance 
here  and  there  with  all  of  the  evidences  of 
pre-arrangement.  Then  came  the  speech  by 
Roosevelt  before  the  Constitutional  Convention 
at  Columbus,  Ohio.  This  speech  was  accepted 
as  a  statement  of  his  " principles."  It  dealt  in 
his  characteristic  way  with  many  issues  which 
had  been  raised  by  Progressives.  It  sounded 
progressive  enough  to  satisfy  men  of  that 
belief,  who  did  not  weigh  carefully  qualifying 
phraseology,  and  at  the  same  time  was  not  defi 
nitely  progressive  enough  to  alarm  big  business. 
He  favored  the  Initiative  and  Referendum  with 
"proper  restrictions."  He  favored  the  Recall 
"with  such  restrictions  as  will  make  it  available 
only  when  there  is  a  widespread  and  genuine 
public  feeling  among  a  majority  of  the  voters." 
The  Recall,  as  applied  to  judges,  he  declared  to 
be  a  question  of  "expediency  merely"  which 
each  community  has  a  right  to  try  for  itself  in 
"whatever  shape  it  pleases."  As  to  labor  legis 
lation  he  suggested  that  "no  restrictions  be 
placed  on  legislative  powers  that  will  prevent 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  617 

the  enactment  of  laws  under  which  your  people 
can  promote  the  general  welfare,  the  common 
good."  His  discussion  of  trust  regulation  was 
equally  indefinite,  declaring  that  the  mere  size 
of  business  is  no  offence,  and  that  any  corpo 
ration,  big  or  little,  which  has  gained  its  posi 
tion  by  unfair  methods,  and  by  interference  with 
the  rights  of  others  which  has  "raised  prices  or 
limited  output  in  improper  fashion"  should  be 
broken  up.  As  to  other  national  issues,  includ 
ing  the  tariff,  he  said,  "I  stand  to-day  exactly 
where  I  stood  in  1910." 

As  to  where  he  stood  in  1910,  it  will  be  remem 
bered  that,  in  a  signed  editorial  in  the  Outlook 
under  date  of  September  17th,  of  that  year, 

speaking  of  the  Payne-Aldrich  Tariff  Law,  Roose^ 

\\ 

velt  said:  "I  believe  that  the  present  tariff  is 
better  than  the  last,  and  considerably  better 
than  the  one  before  the  last."  This  was  equiv 
alent  to  saying  what  Taft  said  at  Winona  and 
shows  Roosevelt,  on  the  tariff,  to  be  just  the  same 
sort  of  a  Progressive  —  and  just  the  same  sort  of 
a  Standpatter  —  as  Taft,  as  indeed  does  Presi 
dent  Roosevelt's  entire  record  of  seven  years. 


618  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

While  this  speech  was  undergoing  preparation, 
some  of  my  former  supporters  who  were  now 
openly  for  Roosevelt  evidenced  anxiety  lest  the 
address  would  not  be  definitely  Progressive,  and 
informed  friends  in  Washington  that  they  were 
keeping  in  close  touch  with  the  Colonel  for  the 
purpose  of  stiffening  him  up  on  his  Progressive 
declarations.  It  was  reported  that  when  the 
completed  address  was  read  to  one  of  them  and 
he  was  asked  for  his  opinion,  he  answered  with 
the  single  word  "punk." 

Few  men  of  our  time  have  Roosevelt's  appre 
ciation  of  the  importance  of  keeping  the  public 
guessing  in  order  to  stimulate  political  interest. 
Although  the  Columbus  speech  could  not,  of 
course,  carry  any  statement  as  to  his  candidacy, 
Roosevelt  gave  to  the  occasion  just  the  right 
turn  by  tossing  off  to  the  newspaper  reporters 
afterward  the  observation,  "My  hat  is  in  the 
ring."  This  meant  that  he  was  a  candidate. 
But  it  was  followed  at  once  with  the  serious 
statement  that  he  was  still  considering  what  an 
swer  he  should  make  to  the  half  dozen  governors 
whom  he  had  informally  invited  to  formally 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  619 

invite  him  to  become  a  candidate  for  the  Repub 
lican  nomination  for  the  presidency.  This  an 
swer,  it  was  given  out,  he  would  make  later.  But 
all  things  must  have  an  end. 

Finally,  upon  the  twenty-sixth  of  February, 
Roosevelt  made  a  formal  statement  in  which  he 
said  he  would  accept  the  nomination  for  Presi 
dent  if  tendered  him  by  the  Republican  presiden 
tial  convention.  At  last  the  public  had  definite 
word.  Men  no  longer  guessed  or  made  wagers 
that  he  would  or  would  not.  It  was  settled. 
And  now,  to  the  surprise  and  disappointment  of 
Roosevelt  enthusiasts,  the  interest  of  the  general 
public  began  to  abate.  The  speculative  element 
which  prompts  men  to  stake  fortunes  on  the 
turn  of  the  market  was  eliminated,  and  the  pub 
lic  settled  down  to  a  serious  consideration  of  the 
real  meaning  and  significance  of  Roosevelt's 
candidacy.  His  friends  had  predicted  that  his 
statement  "would  fire  the  country";  that  "it 
would  only  be  necessary  for  him  to  consent  to  be 
a  candidate."  He  had  thought  so  too.  "I  will 
accept  the  nomination  for  President  if  it  is 
tendered  to  me,"  he  wrote  to  the  governors, 


620  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

But  after  the  press  had  made  its  formal  com 
ment  on  his  announcement,  interest  began  to 
drag  perceptibly.  His  friends  in  Washington 
became  very  anxious  about  it.  Roosevelt  him 
self  soon  realized  that  he  had  misjudged  the 
situation;  that  the  call  for  him  again  to  serve 
the  public  was  not  so  urgent  as  he  had  supposed; 
that  he  must  drop  the  receptive  role  which  he 
had  assumed  and  go  out  and  create  a  demand 
for  his  candidacy.  He  decided  to  try  a  trip  to 
Boston  and  did  so.  But  it  proved  disappoint 
ing.  In  short,  his  Boston  speech  and  reception 
were  admitted  by  his  friends  to  be  a  frost.  He 
came  back  very  much  discouraged.  After  this 
failure  he  understood  that  when  he  went  out 
again  he  must  "make  a  killing."  His  next  pub 
lic  appearance  must  be  an  unqualified  success,  or 
it  might  set  the  tide  running  the  wrong  way. 

The  primary  election  in  North  Dakota  was 
near  at  hand.  It  was  the  first  presidential  pref 
erence  test.  He  must  carry  that  state  by  a 
good  majority  for  its  effect  upon  the  country. 
North  Dakota,  by  the  rules  that  govern  in  all 
contests,  should  be  his.  It  was  the  state  in 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

which  he  had  spent  his  cowboy  days,  and  the 
whole  section  west  of  the  Missouri  River  was 
still  called  the  cow  country.  Every  effort  was 
put  forth  by  the  brother  of  Governor  Bass  of 
New  Hampshire,  who  was  in  charge  of  Roose 
velt's  campaign,  to  stir  the  state  pride  for  the 
Colonel  as  a  North  Dakota  pioneer.  A  day  or 
two  before  the  election  Roosevelt  sent  a  long 
telegram  into  North  Dakota  pleading  with  the 
voters  for  their  support.  His  managers  spared  no 
efforts  to  win  the  state  for  Roosevelt.  A  large 
force  of  clerks  and  stenographers  was  employed  at 
their  headquarters,  and  a  campaign  attended 
with  a  very  lavish  expenditure  of  money  was 
prosecuted  for  weeks.  It  would  scarcely  be 
an  exaggeration  to  say  that  through  their  head 
quarters  they  spent  more  money  in  one  day  than 
the  entire  campaign  in  North  Dakota  cost  my 
supporters. 

An  interesting  feature  of  Roosevelt's  cam 
paign  in  North  Dakota,  and  one  illustrating  his 
peculiar  political  methods,  was  his  change  of 
front  on  the  reciprocity  issue.  North  Dakota, 
as  a  grain-growing  state,  was  strongly  opposed 


622  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

to  Taft's  Canadian  agreement,  and  the  feeling 
of  resentment  against  him  was  so  intense  that 
he  scarcely  figured  in  the  campaign  at  all. 
Roosevelt  was  as  strongly  in  favor  of  the  Cana 
dian  Pact  as  Taft,  and  through  editorials  in 
the  Outlook  and  public  addresses  he  had 
given  vigorous  support  to  Taft's  Cana 
dian  policy  and  specifically  endorsed  the 
agreement.  After  Roosevelt  became  an  an 
nounced  candidate,  our  headquarters  at 
Washington  made  an  investigation  of  his 
record  upon  this  subject.  Taft  had  trans 
mitted  the  Canadian  agreement  to  Congress 
by  special  message  January  26,  1911.  In 
a  signed  editorial  on  January  28th,  in  which  he 
commended  reciprocity  with  Canada,  Roosevelt 
said : 

"Our  tariff  policy  with  Canada  can  well 
afford  to  stand  by  itself,  not  only  because  of  our 
close  relationship  to  the  great  Dominion  to  the 
north  of  us,  but  because  of  the  substantial  iden 
tity  of  conditions  on  each  side  of  the  line  divid 
ing  us,  so  that  as  regards  Canada  I  should  be 
glad  to  see  the  most  complete  measure  of  reci 
procity  to  which  Canada  will  consent." 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  623 

And  again,  on  February  25,  1911,  the  Outlook 
said,  editorially: 

"Canadian  reciprocity  was  commended  last 
week  in  notable  speeches  both  from  President 
Taft  and  ex-President  Roosevelt." 

In  a  speech  made  at  Grand  Rapids,  Mich., 
February  llth,  Roosevelt  said:  - 

"I  welcome  the  proposed  reciprocity  treaty 
(with  Canada)  as  making  a  signal  advance  in 
bringing  about  the  closest  and  most  friendly 
relations  between  the  two  countries." 

TWTO  days  later,  in  a  speech  before  the  Re 
publican  Club  at  the  hotel  Waldorf,  New  York 
City,  Roosevelt  declared: 

"I  want  to  say  how  glad  I  am  to  hear  of  the 
way  in  which  the  club,  the  members  of  the  club 
here  to-night,  responded  to  the  two  appeals 
made  to  them  to  "uphold  the  hands  of  President 
Taft  (terrific  applause)  both  in  his  effort  to 
secure  reciprocity  with  Canada,  and  in  his 
effort  to  secure  the  fortification  of  the  Panama 
Canal  (applause).  ...  I  hail  the  reciproc 
ity  agreement,  because  it  represents  an  effort  to 
bring  about  a  closer,  a  more  intimate  and 


624  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

friendly  relationship  of  mutual  advantage  on 
equal  terms  between  Canada  and  the  United 
States." 

As  soon  as  Roosevelt's  endorsement  of  reci 
procity,  as  shown  by  his  speeches  and  editorials, 
was  printed  in  the  North  Dakota  papers,  he 
reversed  his  position  through  a  letter  furnished 
to  the  publisher  of  a  Minneapolis  agricultural 
journal  having  a  North  Dakota  circulation, 
and  came  out  flatly  against  the  Canadian  agree 
ment. 

Nothing  could  more  clearly  expose  Roosevelt's 
shiftiness  in  politics  than  his  course  on  Canadian 
reciprocity.  When  proposed  by  Taft  and  ex 
ploited  by  the  newspapers,  who  were  the  special 
beneficiaries  under  the  plan,  it  appeared  to  be 
a  very  popular  issue.  And  Roosevelt,  as  the 
above  quotations  show,  originally  advocated  it. 
It  was  defeated  at  the  close  of  the  61st  Congress, 
and  again  in  the  extra  session  called  by  Taft  at 
the  beginning  of  the  62d  Congress.  The  ex 
tended  debate  upon  it  exposed  it  as  a  sham,  and 
by  the  time  the  North  Dakota  primary  was  at 
hand,  it  was  no  longer  a  popular  issue.  Hence, 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  625 

Roosevelt  faced  the  other  way  and  repudiated 
his  former  endorsement. 

In  his  campaign,  as  the  candidate  of  the 
Roosevelt  party,  he  spoke  on  the  fifth  of  Sep 
tember,  1912,  to  the  farmers  of  Minnesota,  on 
the  state  fair  grounds  at  Saint  Paul.  His  audi 
ence  was  90  per  cent,  hostile  to  Canadian 
reciprocity.  So  Roosevelt,  never  missing  the 
popular  side,  had  this  to  say  of  Canadian  reci 
procity  to  the  Minnesota  farmers : 

"At  first  many  of  us,  myself  among  the  num 
ber,  thought  reciprocity  might  be  a  good  thing. 
But  we  took  it  for  granted  that  the  bill  would  be 
drawn  right.  Later  we  found  it  was  a  jug- 
handle  proposition,  with  the  farmers  paying  the 
freight." 

That  is  to  say,  Roosevelt  had  advocated 
Canadian  reciprocity  at  the  outset  because  he 
took  it  for  granted  the  bill  would  be  drawn  right, 
from  which  he  would  have  it  inferred  that  he 
advocated  Canadian  reciprocity  before  he  under 
stood  the  nature  of  the  Canadian  agreement,  and 
the  bill  drawn  in  compliance  with  the  agree 
ment.  Now,  what  are  the  facts? 


626  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

In  the  recent  contest  between  Taft  and 
Roosevelt  for  the  Republican  nomination,  the 
fact  that  Roosevelt  changed  his  position 
on  Canadian  reciprocity,  when  he  found  it 
unpopular,  led  Taft  to  make  a  very  remark 
able  disclosure.  In  a  speech  delivered  at 
Boston,  on  April  25,  1912,  President  Taft 
said: 

"Mr.  Roosevelt  now  seeks  to  take  advantage 
of  the  supposed  feeling  among  the  farmers  of  the 
country  against  the  reciprocity  agreement  with 
Canada,  which  I  made  and  induced  Congress  to 
adopt,  but  which  Canada  finally  rejected.  I 
would  not  object  to  this  as  a  legitimate  argu 
ment  in  a  political  controversy  against  me  and  in 
his  favor,  if  the  fact  were  not  that  I  consulted 
him  ten  days  before  I  made  the  agreement,  and 
explained  to  him,  in  full,  its  probable  terms, 
stated  the  arguments  pro  and  con,  especially 
the  effect  of  it  on  agricultural  products,  and 
asked  him  to  confer  with  his  colleagues  of  the 
Outlook  as  to  its  wisdom  and  public  benefit, 
and  let  me  know  his  and  their  judgment.  He 
replied  approving  the  agreement  in  the  most 
enthusiastic  terms  and  complimenting  me 
for  having  brought  it  forward.  I  submit 
below  our  correspondence  on  the  subject  of 
reciprocity: 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  627 

"'(Confidential) 
:THE  WHITE  HOUSE,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

"'January  10,   1911. 


6 My  dear  Theodore: 


"'The  probability  is  that  we  shall  reach  an 
agreement  with  our  Canadian  friends  by  which 
all  natural  products  —  cereals,  lumber,  dairy 
products,  fruits,  meats,  and  cattle  —  shall  enter 
both  countries  free,  and  that  we  shall  get  a 
revision  —  not  as  heavy  a  one  as  I  would  like, 
but  a  substantial  one,  and  equivalent  certainly 
to  the  French  reciprocity  treaty  and  probably 
more  —  on  manufactures.' ' 

Here  follows  about  half  a  column  of  further 
quotation  from  Taft's  letter,  giving  the  argu 
ments  pro  and  con  on  the  subject.  The  letter 
concludes  as  follows: 

"  '  I  shall  be  glad  to  hear  from  you  as  soon  as 
you  conveniently  can  write  on  this  subject,  be 
cause  the  matter  is  just  at  hand  and  it  is  quite 
likely  that  within  ten  days  we  shall  reach  an 
agreement. 

" '  Sincerely  yours, 

'"  WILLIAM  H.  TAFT.'" 


628  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

To  this  letter  Roosevelt  replied  as  follows: 


YORK,  January  12,  1911. 
"'Dear  Mr.  President: 

"  '  I  at  once  took  your  letter  and  went  over  it 
with  the  Outlook  editors.  ...  It  seems  to 
me  that  what  you  propose  to  do  with  Canada  is 
admirable  from  every  standpoint.  I  firmly 
believe  in  free  trade  with  Canada  for  both 
economic  and  political  reasons.  As  you  say, 
labor  cost  is  substantially  the  same  in  the  two 
countries,  so  that  you  are  amply  justified  by  the 
platform.  Whether  Canada  will  accept  such 
reciprocity  I  do  not  know,  but  it  is  greatly  to 
your  credit  to  make  the  effort.  It  may  damage 
the  Republican  party  for  a  while,  but  it  will 
surely  benefit  the  party  in  the  end,  especially  if 
you  tackle  wool,  cotton,  etc.,  as  you  propose. 
"'Ever  yours, 

"'  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT." 

Taft's  letter  to  Roosevelt  explicitly  stated  the 
essentials  of  the  agreement  as  made,  and  incor 
porated  in  the  bill  which  became  a  law.  His 
letter  informed  Roosevelt  that  cereals,  lumber, 
dairy  products,  fruits,  meats,  and  cattle  were  to 
be  made1  free,  and  in  exchange  for  that,  Canada 
reduced  the  duties  on  manufactured  products. 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  629 

So  Roosevelt  had  specific  information  that  all 
these  agricultural  products  were  to  be  admitted 
from  Canada  free  of  duty,  and  declared  it  to  be 
"admirable  from  every  standpoint."  Now,  he 
says,  he  thought  reciprocity  might  be  a  good 
thing  but  "took  it  for  granted  the  bill  would  be 
drawn  right."  Roosevelt  ought  to  have  told 
the  Minnesota  farmers  how  he  would  draw  a  bill 
which  would  be  "right,"  as  to  their  interests  so 
long  as  it  admitted  free  of  duty  agricultural 
products,  as  he  knew  from  Taft's  letter  this 
agreement  proposed  to  do.  Now,  we  know  that 
Roosevelt  was  fully  advised,  before  the  agree 
ment  was  made,  of  everything  to  which  the 
farmer  objects  in  the  agreement  as  made,  and 
the  bill  drawn  in  conformity  with  it.  Pos 
sessing  this  information,  he  approved  it  in  the 
strongest  terms  in  his  letter  to  Taft,  January  12th. 
After  this  identical  agreement  had  been  entered 
into,  and  after  the  President  had  transmitted  it 
to  Congress,  and  after  the  bill  based  on  the 
agreement  had  been  introduced  in  Congress,  he 
wrote  editorials  and  made  speeches  for  it.  He 
understood  then  quite  as  well  as  he  does  now 


630  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

that  it  was  a  "jug-handle  proposition  with  the 
farmer  paying  the  freight." 

The  above  quotations  from  the  Outlook  and 
from  Roosevelt's  speeches  were  incorporated  in 
a  typewritten  statement  prepared  at  our  head 
quarters  for  publication  in  the  North  Dakota 
papers.  The  following  morning  an  incident 
occurred  which  furnishes  a  side  light  on  the 
difficulties  under  which  my  campaign  was  con 
ducted.  We  were  surprised  to  learn  that  this 
typewritten  statement  had  been  clandestinely 
sent  from  our  headquarters  to  the  office  of  Gilson 
Gardner,  who  had  more  than  a  month  before 
severed  all  relations  with  my  campaign,  and  be 
come  an  open  supporter  of  Roosevelt.  It  was 
at  once  suspected  that  an  employe  in  our  head 
quarters,  who  had  access  to  the  material  that 
we  were  sending  out,  had  transmitted  this 
statement  of  Roosevelt's  position  on  the  Cana 
dian  pact  to  Gardner's  office.  When  questioned 
he  vigorously  denied  having  done  so.  Antici 
pating  that  he  might  try  to  warn  his  confeder 
ate  in  Gardner's  office,  a  watch  was  set  over  the 
telephone  connections.  A  few  minutes  later, 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  631 

indeed,  as  soon  as  he  could  reach  a  tele 
phone  in  the  office,  where  he  supposed  he  could 
talk  without  being  overheard,  he  called  up 
Kirby,  Gardner's  confidential  stenographer,  and 
directed  Kirby  to  destroy  the  envelope  in 
which  the  typewritten  record  had  been  en 
closed. 

This  affair  would  be  scarcely  worth  mention 
ing  except  as  it  tends  to  show  the  difficulties 
under  which  I  was  compelled  to  prosecute  my 
campaign.  It  was  a  most  critical  time  when 
everything  counted.  The  North  Dakota  con 
test  was  engaging  the  attention  of  the  whole 
country.  Everything  bearing  upon  the  Roose 
velt  candidacy  there  was  of  the  keenest  interest. 

The  employe  whose  name  I  withhold,  be 
cause  it  would  appear  that  he  was  simply 
the  tool  of  others,  was  appointed  to  a  po 
sition  of  some  responsibility  months  before, 
upon  the  endorsement  of  Kirby,  who  stood  in 
such  relation  to  Gardner  that  his  endorsement 
was  accepted  by  the  headquarters.  Of  this 
fact  I  had  not  known  personally.  F.  M.  Kirby 
is  the  same  Kirby  who  was  private  stenographer 


632  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

to  Secretary  of  the  Interior  Ballinger,  and  who 
created  a  great  sensation  in  the  Ballinger- 
Pinchot  investigation,  by  appearing  before  the 
committee  and  giving  testimony  against  Bal 
linger  and  in  the  interest  of  Pinchot,  concerning 
matters  of  which  he  claimed  personal  knowledge 
on  account  of  his  confidential  relations  with 
Secretary  Ballinger.  Kirby  was  thereafter  em 
ployed  by  Gardner,  who  offered  me  his  services 
from  time  to  time  as  a  stenographer  while 
Gardner  was,  as  I  believed,  supporting  my 
candidacy.  I  did  not  accept  his  tender  of  the 
services  of  Kirby  and  it  is  needless  to  say  that 
the  employe  in  our  headquarters  appointed 
upon  Kirby's  recommendation  was  dismissed 
as  soon  as  it  became  known  that  he  had  sent 
the  Roosevelt  reciprocity  document  to  Gard 
ner's  office. 

Roosevelt  was  urged  by  his  supporters  to 
take  the  stump  in  North  Dakota,  and  it  was 
given  out  to  the  press  in  New  York  that  he 
might  do  so.  But  the  reports  which  he  was 
receiving  from  North  Dakota  were  not  encour 
aging.  He  appeared  to  vacillate  between  the  de- 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  633 

sire  to  take  a  hand  and  the  fear  that  if  he  did  so 
and  lost  the  state  the  hurtful  effect  upon  his 
campaign  would  be  very  much  accentuated. 
He  therefore  took  the  more  prudent  course  of 
sending  some  of  his  closest  adherents  and  most 
effective  campaigners  instead.  Pinchot,  Gar- 
field,  and  others  appeared  upon  the  platform  in 
North  Dakota  in  the  interest  of  his  candidacy. 
Pinchot  found  himself  at  once  confronted  with 
a  demand  for  an  explanation  of  his  shift  to 
Roosevelt.  In  his  speeches  he  assigned  as  the 
sole  reason  for  his  action  that  I  had  become 
disabled,  and  that  in  consequence  it  became 
necessary  for  the  Progressive  Republicans 
to  have  a  candidate  who  could  carry  on  the 
campaign  actively  and  personally.  The  hol- 
lowness  of  this  pretext  was  promptly  ex 
posed  when  I  appeared  in  the  campaign  in 
North  Dakota  in  such  excellent  trim  as  to 
be  able  to  make  from  ten  to  fifteen  speeches 
a  day.  At  the  end  of  four  days  of  this 
sort  of  campaigning,  I  left  North  Dakota  the 
night  before  the  election,  confident  of  the  re 
sult. 


« 


• 
34  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

The  vote  on  the  nineteenth  of  March  in  the 
North  Dakota  presidential  primary  election  - 
the  first  presidential  preference  election  ever 
held  —  astounded  the  country.  Roosevelt  was 
overwhelmingly  beaten.  I  had  carried  the  state 
by  more  than  ten  thousand,  while  Taft's  total 
vote  was  but  little  more  than  eighteen  hundred. 
Taft's  small  vote  in  North  Dakota,  due,  in  part 
at  least,  to  the  resentment  felt  by  the  farmers 
on  account  of  his  stand  upon  the  Canadian  pact, 
nevertheless  disclosed  his  great  personal  weak 
ness  as  a  vote  getter. 

The  North  Dakota  result  thoroughly  alarmed 
the  special  interests,  who  were  backing  Roosevelt 
in  order  to  capture  or  to  divide  and  checkmate 
the  Progressive  movement.  It  is  a  cardinal  prin 
ciple  with  the  interests  to  so  manipulate  national 
politics,  if  possible,  as  to  bring  about  the  nomi 
nation  of  satisfactory  presidential  candidates  by 
both  political  parties.  Either  Taft  or  Roosevelt 
would  be  quite  to  their  liking,  but  North  Dakota 
disclosed  to  them  an  amazing  situation.  If  the 
middle  western  states  were  to  vote  as  North 
Dakota,  then  there  was  the  gravest  danger 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  635 

that  a  real  Progressive  might  be  nominated 
by  the  Republicans  at  Chicago.  If  Roosevelt 
could  not  break  down  my  strength,  and  Taft 
were  to  prove  so  weak  as  not  to  be  counted  in 
the  contest  throughout  that  section  of  the 
country,  then  it  was  obvious  that  I  would 
enter  the  convention  with  enough  votes  either 
to  be  nominated  or  to  force  the  nomina 
tion  of  some  pronounced  Progressive  candi 
date. 

The  North  Dakota  result  called  for  heroic 
treatment.  So  confident  had  been  the  supporters 
of  Roosevelt  that  he  would  sweep  the  country, 
that  they  regarded  a  fund  of  three  hundred  thou 
sand  dollars  as  quite  sufficient  to  carry  his  cam 
paign  through  from  start  to  finish,  and  shortly 
after  his  announcement  boasted  that  this  amount 
had  already  been  provided.  But  the  recession 
of  interest  and  enthusiasm  coming  shortly  after 
he  became  a  candidate  and  followed  by  the 
North  Dakota  landslide  against  him  swept  aside 
all  previous  hopes  and  calculations.  Some 
thing  had  to  be  done,  and  done  quickly.  Some 
thing  was  done.  Just  what  and  by  whom  the 


636  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

public  may  eventually  know.  But  this  much 
may  be  said  now.  If  Perkins  (United  States 
Steel)  contributed  to  Roosevelt's  campaign,  it 
must  have  been  because  Roosevelt's  treatment 
of  trusts  in  the  past  was,  and  his  promised 
treatment  of  trusts  in  the  future  is,  so  very  satis 
factory  to  Perkins  that  he  willingly  put  money 
into  the  campaign  as  an  investment.  Roose 
velt's  position  upon  trusts  must  have  likewise 
appealed  very  strongly  to  others  whose  interests 
were  akin  to  those  of  Perkins.  For  shortly  after 
the  North  Dakota  primary  Munsey,  one  of  the 
prominent  owners  of  United  States  Steel  stocks, 
and  Dan  Hanna,  also  heavily  interested,  and 
others  with  kindred  interests,  became  directly 
and  indirectly  the  largest  contributors  to  Roose 
velt's  campaign.  Contributions  from  men  with 
these  connections  would  account,  in  part,  for  the 
character  of  campaign  which  Roosevelt  carried 
on  for  months,  the  lavish  expenditures  of 
which  were  proof  overwhelming  of  unlimited 
sources  of  supply.  Headquarters  were  estab 
lished  east  and  west,  north  and  south,  and  an 
army  of  men  employed  and  put  in  the  field. 
Special  trains,  private  cars,  literary  bureaus, 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  637 

newspapers,  documents,  special  dailies  —  the 
whole  conduct  of  the  campaign  itself  was  proof 
overwhelming  that  big  finance  was  behind 
Roosevelt. 

My  resources  were  very  limited,  and  it  was 
decided  best  to  confine  my  speaking  campaign 
to  those  states  having  statutes  providing  for  a 
popular  preferential  vote  for  presidential  can 
didates.  As  Nebraska,  Oregon,  and  California 
were  the  first  states,  under  these  statutes,  to 
hold  elections,  I  planned  to  campaign  them  next 
after  the  North  Dakota  election. 

After  I  had  been  announced  to  speak  in 
Nebraska,  an  extra  session  of  the  legislature 
was  unexpectedly  called  by  Governor  Deneen  of 
Illinois.  Pursuant  to  this  call  the  legislature 
of  Illinois  passed  a  presidential  preference  pri 
mary  law.  While  my  supporters  were  inclined 
to  advise  against  placing  my  name  upon  the 
Illinois  ballot  so  long  as  I  could  not  personally 
campaign  the  state  (my  engagements  in  Nebraska 
rendered  it  impossible  for  me  to  make  a  speak 
ing  campaign  in  Illinois),  yet,  feeling  that  real 
Progressives,  who  believed  in  the  principles 


638  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

which  my  candidacy  represented,  should  have 
an  opportunity  wherever  there  was  a  presidential 
preference  law,  to  record  their  convictions,  I 
requested  my  friends  to  take  the  necessary 
steps  to  place  my  name  on  the  ballot.  This 
they  did.  I  should  have  had  no  expectation 
of  carrying  Illinois  even  had  my  engagements 
or  my  finances  admitted  of  making  a  cam 
paign  in  that  state,  because  I  did  not  con 
sider  Illinois  Progressive.  In  support  of  this 
opinion  there  stands  the  undisputed  fact  that 
her  congressional  delegation  in  the  United  States 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  is  ultra- 
reactionary,  and  the  record  of  her  state  legis 
lature  likewise.  The  adoption  of  a  presidential 
preference  primary  was  no  more  proof  that 
Illinois  is  a  Progressive  state  than  a  like  legis 
lative  enactment  by  the  state  of  Massachu 
setts  about  the  same  time  would  be  accepted 
as  proof  that  Massachusetts  is  a  Progressive 
state. 

My  name  was  placed  upon  the  ballot  in 
Illinois  in  accordance  with  my  wishes,  but  there 
was  little  else  that  could  be  done,  as  I  have 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  639 

before  stated.  I  received  some  forty-five  thou 
sand  votes.  Roosevelt,  with  a  very  large  outlay 
of  money,  carried  the  state  overwhelmingly.  He 
made  a  special  train  canvass.  Three  Roosevelt 
headquarters  were  maintained  in  Chicago,  and 
bureaus  throughout  the  state.  On  primary 
day  the  polling  places  swarmed  with  work 
ers,  and  carriages  and  automobiles  scoured 
the  cities  and  towns  and  rural  districts  for 
votes.  His  support  was  not  Progressive.  This 
fact  is  attested  by  the  action  of  the  Illinois 
state  convention,  which  voted  down  the 
Initiative,  the  Referendum,  the  Recall, 
votes  for  women,  and  substantially  every 
distinctly  Progressive  issue  which  was  pre 
sented. 

The  following  week,  with  the  prestige  of 
Illinois,  the  same  sort  of  a  campaign  was  made 
in  Pennsylvania,  with  practically  the  same 
results.  Roosevelt's  success  in  these  two  stand- 
pat  states  stamped  his  candidacy  with  its 
true  character.  No  real  Progressive  could  have 
secured  anything  like  such  a  vote  as  did  Roose 
velt  in  those  states.  It  had,  however,  the  out- 


640  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

ward  seeming  of  success  —  the  sort  of  success 
that  intoxicates  the  crowd. 

There  is  a  time  in  every  campaign  when  the 
tide  sets  in  a  given  direction.  It  then  seems 
quite  impossible  to  arrest  attention  long  enough 
to  distinguish  between  the  real  and  the  counter 
feit.  In  the  80  's,  when  Indiana  and  Ohio  held 
state  elections  in  October,  the  national  com 
mittees  of  both  parties,  counting  on  the  effect 
of  a  winning  in  those  two  states  upon  the 
November  elections  to  follow,  put  forth  every 
effort,  summoned  their  ablest  campaigners  and 
spent  money  without  limit  to  carry  the  state 
elections. 

Illinois  and  Pennsylvania  were  both  ultra- 
reactionary,  one  the  centre  of  Steel  Trust 
power,  and  the  bulwark  of  high  protection;  the 
other  the  home  of  the  Harvester  Trust,  the  Beef 
Trust,  and  many  of  the  greatest  business  com 
binations  of  the  country.  In  both  states  Taft's 
campaign  was  conducted  by  a  discredited  polit 
ical  state  machine,  rankly  offensive  to  the  people. 
The  Steel  Trust  and  other  special  interests  sup 
ported  Roosevelt  because  through  him  they 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  641 

could  divide  the  Progressives  and  defeat  the 
nomination  of  any  real  Progressive  candidate. 
And,  if  it  resulted  in  Roosevelt's  nomination  and 
election,  they  remembered  that  whatever  he  had 
said  about  them,  in  all  the  time  he  was  President, 
he  never  did  anything  to  hurt  them.  He  was 
just  enough  of  a  reactionary  to  retain  the  favor 
of  a  large  body  of  the  reactionary  element,  and 
just  enough  of  a  Progressive  to  attract  unsea 
soned  Progressives  who  wanted  to  beat  Taft, 
regardless  of  the  means  employed  to  carry  their 
states  against  him.  Progressives  of  this  type 
wanted  to  "win";  not  a  real  Progressive  victory 
—  just  a  victory.  And  they  did  win  precisely 
that  kind  of  a  victory  in  those  two  states.  And 
thus,  having  won  in  Illinois  and  Pennsylvania, 
Roosevelt  carried  several  really  Progressive 
states  in  the  elections  that  followed. 

The  result  in  Illinois  and  Pennsylvania  made 
no  difference  with  my  plans.  I  had  known 
defeat  before,  and  had  been  trained  to  meet  it 
with  strengthened  resolution  to  press  on,  build 
ing  up  a  real  Progressive  support,  so  fixed  in  con 
victions  as  to  be  utterly  indifferent  to  reverses. 


642  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

The  momentum  of  a  victorious  army  is  hard  to 
resist,  but  an  army  disciplined  by  defeat,  that 
will  still  fight  on,  is  invincible. 

No  campaign  for  principle  is  ever  in  vain. 
And  I  felt  an  abiding  faith  that  the  work 
which  I  was  doing  in  the  presidential  primary 
states  would  be  lasting  in  its  effects.  A  splen 
did  body  of  men  and  women  were  deeply  inter 
ested.  In  each  of  the  states  the  foundation 
for  a  permanent  Progressive  organization  was 
laid,  with  leaders  of  real  power  in  charge. 

My  campaign  in  California  was  exceptional  in 
many  respects.  Governor  Hiram  Johnson  had 
gone  over  to  Roosevelt,  taking  with  him  his 
strong  state  machine  and  the  La  Toilette  League 
of  several  thousand  members  organized  some 
months  before.  When  I  reached  the  state,  a 
little  more  than  two  weeks  before  the  primary, 
it  seemed  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  make  a 
campaign  at  all.  But  Rudolph  Spreckels,  who 
had  carried  through  the  San  Francisco  graft 
prosecution,  came  forward  with  splendid  spirit, 
and  not  only  paid  all  the  expenses  of  the  Cali 
fornia  campaign,  but  although  suffering  from 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  643 

recent  illness,  he  personally  gave  his  time  and 
strength  and  ability  to  its  management. 

And  likewise  in  varying  degree  did  a  number 
of  loyal  friends  attest  their  devotion  to  the  cause 
-  state  campaign  managers  Harry  N.  Tucker, 
North  Dakota;  R.  O.  Richards,  South  Dakota; 
Frank  A.  Harrison,  Nebraska;  Thomas  Mc- 
Cusker,  Oregon;  Walter  W.  Pollock,  Ohio; 
James  E.  Pope,  New  Jersey;  Elizabeth  G.  Evans, 
Massachusetts,  besides  many  others  in  those 
states  —  all  of  whom  gave  freely  of  their  time 
and  means  in  the  contest. 

So,  in  the  face  of  desertion  and  defeat,  I 
fought  on,  contesting  in  every  direct  primary 
state  until  election  day  in  the  last  state  to  hold 
a  primary  election.  I  lost  Nebraska,  Oregon, 
California,  three  districts  which  I  campaigned 
in  Ohio,  New  Jersey,  and  South  Dakota.  I  had 
carried  Wisconsin  with  twenty-six  delegates  and 
North  Dakota  with  ten,  which  gave  me  thirty- 
six  delegates  to  the  National  Convention  —  a 
very  effective  fighting  force  as  it  finally  proved. 

Roosevelt's  willingness  to  "accept"  merged 
into  a  desire  to  receive,  and  then  into  a  deter- 


644  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

mination  to  pursue  the  Republican  presidential 
nomination,  which  he  did  in  person  to  the  very 
doors  of  the  convention.  Progressive  principles 
were  lost  sight  of  in  his  campaign.  For  definite 
issues  and  purpose  there  was  substituted  a  stand 
ard  of  personal  loyalty  to  him.  Until  he  came 
into  the  open  as  a  candidate,  five  months  before 
the  convention,  there  had  been  a  strong  and 
rapidly  growing  Progressive  movement  within 
the  Republican  party.  It  was  based  upon 
clearly  defined  principles.  It  stood  forth  as  the 
representative  of  modern  political  thought  on 
fundamental  democracy.  It  had  assumed  na 
tional  proportions.  It  was  united.  Into  this 
movement,  when  it  gave  promise  of  national 
success,  Roosevelt  projected  his  ambition  to  be 
President  a  third  time. 

When  the  campaign  was  finished  both  Taft 
and  Roosevelt  claimed  a  majority  of  the  dele 
gates  elected  to  the  convention.  I  felt  confident 
that  neither  had  a  majority,  and  believed  that 
if  the  contests  were  settled  with  anything  like 
fairness,  it  would  leave  them  with  their  strength 
so  nearly  even  that  the  twenty-six  delegates 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  645 

from  Wisconsin  and  the  ten  from  North  Dakota 
instructed  for  me  would  constitute  the  balance 
of  power  in  the  convention.  I  knew  that  I  could 
depend  upon  the  steadfastness  of  these  thirty- 
six  and  felt  confident  that  they  would  be  in  a 
position  to  force  the  adoption  of  a  strong  Pro 
gressive  platform  and  the  nomination  of  a 
thoroughgoing  Progressive  candidate.  Roose 
velt  and  Taft  had  conducted  a  campaign  so  bit 
terly  personal  that  the  nomination  of  either 
could  not,  I  believed,  commend  itself  to  the 
wisdom  of  a  majority  of  the  convention.  Fur 
thermore,  the  conditions  which  had  aroused 
public  resentment  and  indignation  —  the  control 
of  government  by  the  railroads,  the  trusts,  the 
money  power  —  had  come  upon  the  country 
mainly  in  the  last  dozen  years  under  the  admin 
istrations  of  Roosevelt  and  Taft.  In  view  of  the 
whole  situation,  I  urged  those  representing  me 
in  that  convention  to  stand  to  the  last  against 
the  nomination  of  either  Taft  or  Roosevelt. 

The  Republican  National  Convention  of  1912 
met  in  Chicago  June  18th  and  lasted  until  the 
22nd.  For  about  a  week  before  the  convention 


646  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

the  Republican  National  Committee  had  been 
in  session,  hearing  and  deciding  contests,  in 
order  to  prepare  the  preliminary  roll  of  delegates 
of  those  entitled  to  participate  in  the  temporary 
organization  of  the  convention.  According  to 
custom,  the  credentials  committee,  consisting  of 
one  member  from  each  state,  chosen  by  the  sev 
eral  state  delegations  —  the  choice  being  ratified 
by  the  convention  —  went  into  session  shortly 
after  the  convention  met,  and  passed  upon  the 
results  arrived  at  by  the  National  Committee. 
Knowing  that  he  did  not  have  a  majority 
of  the  delegates  honestly  elected  to  the  conven 
tion,  Roosevelt  made  a  loud  outcry  against 
the  fraud  which  he  professed  to  believe  the 
National  Committee  intended  to  perpetrate  in 
passing  upon  contests  to  be  brought  before  it. 
This  served  the  double  purpose  of  diverting 
attention  from  his  own  fraudulent  contests  and 
discredited  the  decisions  of  the  National  Com 
mittee  in  advance  of  its  action.  While  the 
National  Committee  was  engaged  in  hearing 
and  deciding  the  contests,  Roosevelt  and  his 
followers  vigorously  denounced  at  every  stage 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  647 

the  seating  of  Taft  delegates  as  "robbery"  and 
"theft."  Their  protest  was  quite  as  violent 
when  the  committee  decided  justly  against 
Roosevelt  as  when  it  decided  unjustly  against 
him.  Before  the  National  Committee  had 
completed  its  hearing  of  contests,  preliminary  to 
perfecting  the  temporary  roll  of  delegates,  it 
was  apparent  that  the  Taft  people  would  con 
trol  the  convention  for  temporary  organization. 
Prior  to  the  time  when  Roosevelt  became  an 
avowed  candidate,  the  men  who  were  to  consti 
tute  my  delegation  from  Wisconsin  had  been 
selected,  and  at  his  request  Governor  F.  E. 
McGovern  had  been  named  as  one  of  the  dele 
gates  at  large  and  placed  at  the  head  of  the 
ticket.  The  men  so  selected  were  all  supposed 
to  be  my  friends  and  strongly  in  favor  of  my 
nomination.  They  were  elected  in  the  presi 
dential  primary  by  nearly  one  hundred  thousand 
majority.  Some  days  before  the  Chicago  con 
vention  I  learned  that  McGovern  and  Henry 
Cochems,  another  delegate  and  a  close  friend  of 
McGovern,  had  had  an  interview  with  Roose 
velt  in  his  private  car  on  the  twenty-seventh 


648  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

of  March  (1912)  in  the  city  of  Milwaukee,  as  he 
was  passing  through  the  state  on  his  return  from 
campaigning  in  Minnesota.  I  did  not  know 
just  what  this  interview  signified  until  a  few 
days  before  the  meeting  of  the  convention, 
when  the  word  reached  me  from  friends  in 
Wisconsin  that  McGovern  would  be  Roose 
velt's  candidate  for  temporary  chairman  of  the 
convention.  As  soon  as  I  learned  of  this  I 
sent  my  private  secretary,  John  J.  Hannan,  to 
McGovern,  directing  him  to  say  that  I  should 
regard  his  standing  as  Roosevelt's  candidate  for 
temporary  chairman  as  most  inimical  to  my 
candidacy;  that  the  placing  of  McGovern^s 
name  before  the  convention  as  Roosevelt's  can 
didate  for  temporary  chairman  and  his  elec 
tion  by  Roosevelt  delegates  would  at  once  be 
accepted  by  the  convention  and  the  country  as 
evidence  of  an  alliance  with  Roosevelt;  that  I 
desired  that  my  candidacy  be  kept  entirely  free 
from  any  deal  or  bargain  or  combination  with 
any  other  candidate;  that  the  effect  of  such  a 
proceeding  would  at  once  array  every  delegate 
in  the  convention  opposed  to  Roosevelt  (and 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  649 

many  real  Progressives  were  opposed  to  him) 
against  me ;  that  if  Wisconsin  and  North  Dakota 
held  the  balance  of  power  between  the  Taft  and 
Roosevelt  delegates,  this  would  be  equivalent  to 
surrendering  that  position  of  vantage,  and  in  the 
end  would  operate  to  carry  my  delegates  to  the 
support  of  Roosevelt  and  secure  his  nomination; 
that  as  my  delegates  were  for  the  nomination 
of  neither  Taft  nor  Roosevelt,  they  should  take 
no  action  which  would  strengthen  either  Taft 
or  Roosevelt. 

Hannan  found  McGovern  determined  to  be  the 
Roosevelt  candidate  for  temporary  chairman. 
He  declared  that  he  had  his  speech  all  prepared; 
that  it  was  the  greatest  opportunity  of  his  life, 
and  although  strongly  urged  by  Hannan  to  hold 
off  from  any  such  combination  with  Roosevelt, 
he  refused  absolutely  to  yield. 

It  now  became  plain  that  it  was  a  part  of  the 
Roosevelt  plan  to  form  a  secret  alliance  with 
McGovern,  tempt  him  with  the  Chairmanship 
of  the  Convention,  secure  the  support  of  the 
Wisconsin  and  North  Dakota  delegations,  and 
with  Cummins'  Iowa  strength  added  to  the 


650  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

Roosevelt  strength,  elect  him  chairman;  that 
McGovern,  as  chairman,  should  rule  out  as 
fraudulent,  and  not  entitled  to  participate  in 
the  temporary  organization,  a  sufficient  number 
of  the  Taft  delegates  seated  by  the  National 
Committee,  to  give  Roosevelt  a  majority  of  the 
convention,  and  then  once  in  control  they  would 
be  able  to  steam-roll  Roosevelt's  nomination. 

A  pretence  was  made  that  McGovern's  can 
didacy  was  in  my  interest,  and  would,  in  some 
mysterious  way,  have  aided  in  my  nomination. 
But  this  valuable  service  in  my  behalf  was  con 
ceived  and  carried  along  toward  consummation 
without  consultation  with  or  indeed  without  an 
intimation  to  me,  and  kept  carefully  under  cover 
until  the  Chicago  convention  was  right  at  hand 
—  and  then  attempted  to  be  forced  through 
over  my  earnest  protest.  It  must  always  stand 
upon  the  record  as  a  betrayal,  not  merely  of  my 
candidacy,  but  of  the  Progressive  principles 
which  the  Wisconsin  voters  instructed  these 
men  to  represent  with  fidelity. 

McGovern  stated  in  an  interview  in  explana 
tion  of  his  persistency  in  being  a  candidate  for 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  651 

temporary  chairman,  given  out  to  Wisconsin 
papers  after  his  return  to  the  state  from  the 
convention,  that  if  he  had  been  elected  tem 
porary  chairman  he  would  have  ruled  that  the 
seventy-two  delegates  contested  by  Roosevelt 
should  have  been  stricken  from  the  roll  and 
denied  the  right  to  participate  in  the  temporary 
organization.  He  put  together  some  figures 
attempting  to  show  that,  if  the  deal  had  not 
been  repudiated  from  the  platform  in  my  be 
half  by  Houser,  he  (McGovern)  would  have 
been  elected  temporary  chairman.  The  absurd 
ity  of  this  claim  is  obvious  to  any  one  who,  even 
remotely,  followed  the  proceedings  of  the  con 
vention.  The  fact  that  all  the  anti-Taft  votes 
combined  were  not  sufficient  to  control  became 
apparent  on  the  first  test  of  strength  in  the  con 
vention.  This  was  the  "seating"  of  contested 
delegates  for  the  temporary  organization.  And 
in  this  proceeding  all  the  Roosevelt  forces  par 
ticipated  and  were  outvoted.  These  delegates 
safely  seated,  the  Taft  forces  were  strong  enough 
to  dominate  every  subsequent  roll  call,  including 
that  upon  the  temporary  chairmanship.  There 


652  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

is  no  way  of  juggling  figures  to  prove  that  after 
the  seating  of  these  delegates  McGovern  could 
have  been  elected  temporary  chairman,  even 
were  he  given  the  votes  of  all  my  delegates.  But 
that  is  relatively  unimportant.  Even  had  it 
been  possible  for  such  a  combination  to  elect  Mc 
Govern,  I  could  not  have  consented  to  it.  Such 
a  course  would  have  been  a  repudiation  of  my 
whole  career  and  of  my  pledges  to  the  people 
to  enter  into  no  deals  or  combinations.  What 
is  significant  is  McGovern's  admission  that  if  he 
had  been  elected  temporary  chairman  he  would 
have  "gaveled"  the  seventy -two  delegates  con 
tested  by  Roosevelt  out  of  their  seats.  In  other 
words,  he  confesses  that  he  would  have  done 
even  more  unjustifiable  "steam-rolling"  as  chair 
man  in  Roosevelt's  interest  than  he  says  was 
done  by  the  convention  in  Taft's  interest.  Such 
a  decision  as  this,  had  it  been  rendered,  would 
have  violated  the  precedents  of  every  national 
convention  ever  held,  and  arbitrarily  and  wrong 
fully  have  nominated  Roosevelt  as  the  Repub 
lican  candidate. 

Upon  the  arrival  of  the  Wisconsin  delegates 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  653 

at  Chicago  prior  to  the  meeting  of  the  con 
vention,  a  caucus  of  the  delegates  was  held  to 
consider  McGovern's  candidacy  for  temporary 
chairman.  The  caucus  decided  by  a  vote  of 
15  to  11  not  to  present  McGovern's  name  to 
the  convention  as  a  candidate.  In  violation  of 
this  action  by  the  delegation  and  to  their  great 
amazement,  Henry  Cochems  nevertheless  did 
nominate  McGovern  for  temporary  chairman. 
Immediately  Roosevelt  followers  in  the  conven 
tion,  without  regard  to  the  alphabetical  order 
of  the  states,  were  on  their  feet  seconding  the 
nomination  of  McGovern.  That  there  was  a 
perfect  understanding  with  the  Roosevelt  forces 
now  became  evident. 

The  placing  of  McGovern  in  nomination 
caused  a  stir  throughout  the  convention  hall. 
Many  interpreted  it  as  evidence  of  a  combination 
between  the  Roosevelt  and  La  Follette  forces. 
No  answer  was  forthcoming  until  after  the 
seconding  speeches  had  been  made.  And  then 
Walter  L.  Houser,  my  campaign  manager,  who 
was  a  delegate  at  large,  in  a  forceful,  earnest 
speech,  informed  the  convention  that  the  action 


654  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

of  Cochems  and  the  others  who  seconded 
McGovern's  nomination,  whose  speeches  had 
adroitly  carried  the  impression  that  I  sanctioned 
the  nomination  of  McGovern,  totally  misrep 
resented  my  attitude;  that  my  candidacy  was 
uncompromising  and  unwavering,  and  would 
remain  to  the  end  free  from  combinations  of 
any  sort. 

In  an  editorial  printed  generally  in  the 
Scripps  papers,  Herbert  Quick  says  of  this  inci 
dent  of  the  convention: 

;<The  one  sharp  shock  of  unexpectedness, 
the  dramatic  thrill  which  lifts  the  spectators 
to  erect  grip  on  the  arms  of  their  seats,  was 
furnished  the  first  day  of  the  convention  by 
the  La  Follette  clash  in  the  Wisconsin  dele 
gation.  .  .  . 

"The  Roosevelt  people  wanted  to  get  the  tem 
porary  chairman.  The  fight  was  so  close  that 
nobody  could  tell  how  it  would  end.  Borah 
of  Idaho  was  the  Roosevelt  candidate.  But 
the  politics  of  the  situation  pointed  unerringly 
to  McGovern  of  Wisconsin.  For  the  La  Follette 
votes  in  Wisconsin  and  North  Dakota,  number 
ing  36,  were  bitterly  needed.  It  was  plain 
that  with  ordinary  men  and  ordinary  convention 
standards,  these  36  votes  could  be  secured  by 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  655 

the  honor  to  this  little  group  of  giving  one  of 
their  number  the  temporary  chairmanship. 

"They  offered  the  glittering  prize  to  McGov- 
ern.  The  delegation,  under  the  general  in 
structions  to  avoid  deals,  dickers,  and  affiliations 
refused  it.  It  decided  that  it  would  not  present 
the  name  of  Governor  McGovern.  But  Henry 
Cochems,  a  personal  chum  of  the  governor, 
with  the  governor's  consent,  and  acting  as  an 
individual,  presented  his  name  in  a  ringing 
speech. 

"The  Roosevelt  leaders  —  Hadley,  Glasscock, 
Heney,  Johnson,  and  others  —  seconded  the 
nomination.  To  the  convention  it  looked  as 
though  the  Roosevelt  people  had  annexed  the 
La  Follette  strength  on  this  vote,  and  probably 
on  everything  save  the  formal  votes  for  Pres 
ident. 

"And  then  the  lightning  flashed!  Walter  L. 
Houser,  La  Follette's  manager,  took  the  plat 
form,  and  in  a  speech  thrilling  with  passion,  laid 
the  La  Follette  cards  face  up  on  the  convention 
table. 

"'This  nomination  is  not  with  Senator  La 
Follette's  consent,'  he  shouted.  'We  make  no 
deals  with  Roosevelt.  We  make  no  trades  with 
Taft.  Not  even  this  great  honor  to  our  gov 
ernor  and  an  honored  member  of  our  delegation 
can  bribe  Wisconsin's  representatives.  Let  no 
man  think  that  La  Follette  has  traded  with 
any  one.  We  make  no  trades.'  .  .  .  'I'm 
going  to  wire  La  Follette  to-night,'  said  an 


656  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

Indiana  Roosevelt  leader,  'that  he  reaps  more 
glory  out  of  this  than  any  other  man  gets  in 
the  day's  doings.  It  tells  in  a  single  dramatic 
moment  what  he  has  been  trying  to  tell  the 
country  for  a  year  —  that  he  is  playing  the  game 
without  deals,  without  bargains,  and  with  sole 
reference  to  accomplishing  results  which  he 
believes  to  be  necessary  to  the  welfare  of  the 
country.  If  this  episode  had  been  staged  by 
a  skilful  dramatist  for  the  express  purpose  of 
doing  this  very  thing,  it  could  not  have  been 
more  splendidly  done.  It  put  Wisconsin  in  the 
spotlight.  But  the  real  significance  of  the 
incident  is  its  value  in  giving  the  world  a  flash 
light  picture  of  the  La  Follette  way  of  doing 
things.' 

"The  incident  made  a  lot  of  Roosevelt  men 
fiercely  angry.  They  asserted  that  La  Follette 
was  trying  to  wreak  his  wrath  on  Roosevelt 
and  to  aid  Taft.  But  the  country  will  know 
better.  And  the  Roosevelt  men  themselves, 
most  of  them,  know  better.  The  picture  thrown 
on  the  screen  of  the  fateful  first  day  of  the 
fateful  Republican  convention  of  1912  will  stay 
in  the  nation's  mind. 

"It  shows  an  indomitable  figure  —  erect,  un 
bending,  swayed  by  no  wind  of  expediency, 
moved  by  no  temporary  advantage,  playing 
the  long  game,  building  influence  and  opinion 
rather  than  winning  victories,  making  no  deals 
or  trades,  taking  defeat  gamely,  and  when  met 
by  a  facer  coming  back  for  more  punishment, 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  657 

until  his  foe  finally  goes  down  beaten  by  an 
adversary  who  does  not  know  how  to  quit." 

After  the  final  vote  for  President  on  Saturday, 
June  22d,  Roosevelt  and  his  followers  held  a 
meeting  in  Orchestra  Hall,  where,  in  a  speech 
to  the  delegates,  he  bade  them  return  to  their 
constituencies,  to  test  the  sentiment  of  the 
people,  and  meet  again  at  a  later  time  to 
determine  as  to  the  advisability  of  creating  a 
new  party  —  a  Roosevelt  party  —  a  party,  the 
sole  excuse  for  the  formation  of  which  was 
based  upon  the  contention  that  delegates  in  the 
Republican  Convention  were  stolen  from  one 
candidate  and  given  to  another.  "Thou  shalt 
not  steal,"  was  made  the  keynote  of  the  Roose 
velt  bolting  convention.  "Thou  shalt  not  steal 
—  from  me"  would  have  been  more  in  keeping 
as  a  Roosevelt  slogan.  The  importance  of 
principles,  of  issues,  was  wholly  lost  sight  of. 
The  methods  resorted  to  by  the  National  Com 
mittee,  it  may  be  said  in  passing,  however 
wrongful,  were  not  unique.  In  1908,  when  they 
were  necessary  to  steam-roll  the  nomination 
of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  successor,  Mr.  Taft,  we 


658  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

heard  no  word  of  protest.  But,  as  was  aptly 
suggested  by  Mr.  Post  in  The  Public,  whether 
one  is  on  top  of  or  under  the  steam-roller  influ 
ences  somewhat  one's  point  of  view. 

Throughout  the  convention,  the  delegates  who 
were  elected  to  support  and  who  did  support 
me  steadfastly  to  the  end,  labored  for  the 
adoption  of  a  Progressive  platform.  In  this 
they  had  no  cooperation  from  the  Roosevelt 
forces.  This  incident  is  characteristic:  When 
the  Progressive  platform  was  presented  to  the 
convention,  by  Walter  C.  Owen,  the  La  Follette 
member  of  the  Committee  on  Resolutions,  in 
order  to  obtain  a  roll  call  on  its  adoption,  it 
was  necessary  under  the  rules  to  have  a  second 
by  two  states.  La  Follette  delegates  went  in 
every  direction,  begging  for  another  state  to 
join  with  Wisconsin  and  North  Dakota  in  order 
to  get  a  vote  —  merely  a  vote  —  and  every  re 
quest  was  met  with  a  flat  refusal.  Thus  through 
the  cooperation  of  Roosevelt  and  Taft  forces,  a 
.record  vote  upon  a  definitely  Progressive  plat 
form  of  principles  was  rendered  impossible. 

The  importance  of  the  charge  made  by  Mr, 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  659 

Roosevelt  that  the  nomination  was  stolen  from 
him,  led  La  Follettes  Weekly  Magazine  to  engage 
Mr.  Gilbert  E.Roe,  of  New  York  City,  to  analyze 
the  evidence  and  all  the  proceedings  bearing 
upon  the  seating  of  delegates  whose  title  was  in 
dispute.  He  obtained  from  the  National  Com 
mittee  and  the  Committee  on  Credentials  all  of 
the  evidence  presented  in  every  contest  to  the 
two  committees,  and  the  shorthand  notes  of  the 
proceedings  of  both  committees.  He  made  an 
exhaustive  study  of  each  one  of  the  contested 
cases.  I  submit  herewith  the  results  of  his 
work. 

There  were  1078  delegates  to  the  convention. 
Five  hundred  and  forty  constituted  a  majority, 
and  was  the  minimum  number  of  votes  necessary 
to  secure  the  nomination  of  any  candidate.  The 
final  vote  for  President  was  as  follows:  Taft, 
561;  Roosevelt,  107;  La  Follette,  41;  Cummins, 
17;  Hughes,  2;  Absent,  6;  not  voting,  344. 
(Five  of  my  41  votes  were  cast  by  the  South 
Dakota  delegation.) 

Upon  the  adoption  of  the  majority  report 
of  the  Committee  on  Credentials  by  the  con- 


660  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

vention,  Roosevelt  in  a  statement  presented  by 
Henry  J.  Allen  of  Kansas,  said:  "I  do  not 
release  any  delegate  from  his  honorable  obliga 
tion  to  vote  for  me  if  he  votes  at  all,  but  under 
the  actual  conditions,  I  hope  that  he  will  not 
vote  at  all."  So,  in  view  of  this  request  Mr. 
Roe,  in  his  analysis,  places  Roosevelt's  actual 
strength  in  the  convention  at  107  plus  344, 
or  451.  In  order,  however,  that  there  can  be 
no  possible  question  as  to  the  maximum  number 
of  Roosevelt  votes  in  the  convention,  he  assumes 
that  the  six  absent  delegates  would  have  voted 
for  Roosevelt,  had  they  been  present;  that  the 
two  who  voted  for  Hughes  and  the  seven  from 
Idaho  who  voted  with  the  Iowa  delegates  for 
Cummins,  might  also  at  some  time  during  the 
proceedings  have  cast  their  votes  for  Roosevelt. 
This  would  add  15  more  votes  to  the  possible 
Roosevelt  strength,  making  a  total  of  466  votes 
as  the  maximum  which  he  could  have  received 
under  any  circumstances.  The  difference  be 
tween  466  and  540  is  74.  Seventy-four  addi 
tional  votes,  therefore,  must  have  been  obtained 
from  some  source  in  order  to  have  made  Roose- 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  661 

velt's    nomination    in    the    convention    even    a 
possibility. 

Mr.  Roe  then  proceeds  to  analyze  the  evidence 
upon  which  the  charge  of  theft  is  made.  A 
table  which  he  presents  shows  the  whole  number 
of  contests  to  be  105,  the  number  of  seats 
involved  being  248.  The  actual  number  of 
delegates  involved  was  considerably  larger  than 
this,  as  there  were  sometimes  three  sets  of 
contesting  delegates,  and  in  several  instances 
the  same  faction  of  the  party  had  contesting 
delegates.  From  the  official  report  it  appears 
that  there  were  164  Taft  delegates  seated  either 
by  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  National  Com 
mittee,  or  by  a  viva  voce  vote  when  the  contest 
was  not  regarded  by  the  Roosevelt  members  of 
the  National  Committee  as  sufficiently  serious 
to  require  a  roll  call.  To  be  exact,  26  Taft 
delegates  were  seated  by  a  viva  voce  vote, 
announced  as  unanimous  and  not  questioned; 
36  were  seated  by  unanimous  vote  on  roll  call; 
contests  were  withdrawn  by  14  Roosevelt  con 
testing  delegates  after  the  cases  were  called, 
and  in  the  case  of  88  delegates,  they  were  seated 


662  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

by  a  viva  voce  vote  without  any  request  for  a 
roll  call.  Roosevelt  was  awarded  19  of  the 
contested  delegates. 

Deducting  from  the  248  delegates  (the  total 
number  in  contest)  the  19  Roosevelt  delegates 
seated,  leaves  229;  and  deducting  the  164  Taft 
delegates  above  mentioned,  leaves  65,  as  the 
only  delegates  concerning  whom  there  was  a 
substantial  contest.  The  correctness  of  these 
figures,  Mr.  Roe  goes  on  to  state,  is  strikingly 
verified  by  the  action  of  the  Roosevelt  members 
of  the  National  Committee.  Thirteen  of  those 
members  presented  a  minority  report  to  the 
National  Committee,  in  which  they  set  out  that 
the  Taft  delegates  seated  from  certain  states 
and  districts  (which  Mr.  Roe  tabulates  in  his 
analysis)  were  improperly  seated,  and  that  the 
Roosevelt  delegates  contesting  these  seats, 
should  be  placed  on  the  temporary  roll,  While 
this  table  represents  that  72  delegates  had  been 
seriously  contested  by  the  Roosevelt  people, 
the  sheet  containing  the  original  pencil  memo 
randa  which,  in  some  way,  became  attached  to 
the  report,  shows  that  the  original  number  of 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  663 

delegates  marked  for  contest  was  66.  Enough 
were  afterward  added  to  bring  the  total  up 
to  72. 

On  June  19th,  Governor  Hadley,  the  leader  of 
the  Roosevelt  forces,  submitted  the  following 
motion  to  the  National  Convention: 

"I  move  as  a  substitute  for  the  motion 
offered  by  the  gentleman  from  Indiana,  Mr. 
Watson,  that  the  list  of  delegates,  or  temporary 
roll  of  this  convention,  be  amended  by  striking 
therefrom  the  names  of  the  delegates  upon 
List  No.  1,  which  I  hand  to  the  secretary,  and 
that  there  be  substituted  in  lieu  thereof  the 
names  upon  List  No.  2,  which  I  hand  to  the 
secretary,  and  that  the  temporary  roll,  when 
thus  amended,  become  the  roll  of  the  con 
vention." 

This  motion  proposed  to  substitute  the 
Roosevelt  delegates  for  the  Taft  delegates  in 
the  case  of  the  72  delegates  covered  by  the 
minority  report  of  the  Roosevelt  members  of 
the  National  Committee.  The  convention  re 
fused  to  adopt  the  Hadley  resolution,  and  it  is 
this  action  which  the  Roosevelt  adherents  assert 
made  it  fraudulent.  Since  it  was  in  the  seating, 


664  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

therefore,  of  the  72  delegates  above  mentioned 
that  the  Roosevelt  followers  charge  fraud,  Mr. 
Roe  reasons  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  consider 
any  other  contests  than  the  ones  involving  the 
seats  of  the  72  delegates. 

After  painstaking  study  of  the  record  evidence 
he  concludes  that  there  was  no  basis  for  the 
claim  that  a  majority  of  the  delegates  honestly 
elected  to  the  National  Convention  were  for 
Roosevelt;  that  even  if  the  entire  72  covered 
by  the  Hadley  Resolution  had  been  given  to 
Roosevelt,  he  would  not  have  had  enough  to 
nominate  him;  that  these  72,  after  careful 
investigation  of  the  merits  of  the  contests,  and 
for  reasons  which  he  sets  forth  clearly  and  in 
detail,  must  be  reduced  by  23,  leaving  49 
delegates  to  the  National  Convention  as  the 
maximum  number  given  to  Taf t  by  the  National 
Committee  which  could,  on  the  evidence,  fairly 
have  been  given  to  Roosevelt.  Mr.  Roe  does 
not  assert  conclusively  that  these  49  should 
have  been  counted  as  Roosevelt  delegates,  but 
that  some  justification  could  be  found  in  the  evi 
dence  for  so  doing. 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  665 

Adding  to  these  49  the  466  which  represented 
the  maximum  of  Roosevelt's  strength  in  the 
convention,  as  made  up,  gives  Roosevelt  515. 
These  figures  can  fairly  be  reduced.  They  cannot, 
with  the  least  show  of  fairness,  be  increased. 
And  they  show  that  Roosevelt  never  had  any 
thing  like  a  majority  of  the  honestly  elected 
delegates  to  the  convention.  They  also  show, 
when  the  temper  of  the  delegates  pledged  to  the 
other  candidates  is  considered,  that  Roosevelt's 
nomination  was  impossible,  even  if  every  dele 
gate  to  whom  he  had  any  shadow  of  claim,  or 
who  could  be  regarded  as  doubtful,  be  counted 
for  him.  The  charge  of  theft  against  the 
National  Committee  for  seating  Taft  dele 
gates  where  Roosevelt  delegates  should  have 
been  seated,  came  with  bad  grace  from  those 
who  made  it.  At  the  worst,  the  National 
Committee  seated  less  than  50  Taft  delegates 
on  insufficient  evidence.  Those  in  charge  of 
the  Roosevelt  campaign  tried  to  seat  more 
than  150  Roosevelt  delegates  without  any  evi 
dence  at  all.  But  aside  from  all  this, 
knowingly  false  claims  put  forward  by  the 


666  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

Roosevelt  managers  to  more  than  150  delegates 
for  weeks  prior  to  the  convention,  were  made,  as 
they  were  forced  to  admit  while  the  contests  were 
on  trial,  with  the  deliberate  purpose  of  deceiving 
the  Republicans  of  the  country  into  the  belief 
that  Roosevelt's  nomination  was  assured,  and 
that  therefore  it  was  better  to  give  him  sup 
port,  hoping  that  he  would  prove  to  be  a  halfway 
Progressive,  rather  than  to  support  a  real  Pro 
gressive  candidate,  whom  the  voter  personally 
preferred,  but  had  been  led  to  believe  could 
not  be  nominated. 

Judson  C.  Welliver  is  chief  political  writer  on 
the  Washington  Times,  a  paper  owned  by 
Munsey,  who  was  one  of  the  principal  contribu 
tors  to  Roosevelt's  campaign  and  prominent  as 
one  of  his  managers.  In  an  article  of  Mr.  Wei- 
liver's  in  the  Times  of  June  9,  1912,  is  found  this 
startling  admission.  [The  italics  are  mine]: 

"The  Taft  people  knew  their  weakness,  and 
were  scared  about  the  situation.  They  adopted 
the  plan  of  holding  conventions  in  the  South 
early,  because  there  they  had  the  machinery 
and  could  rush  matters  through  with  the  strong 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  667 

arm  procedure  and  stow  away  a  fine  bunch 
of  delegates,  while  the  Roosevelt  movement 
was  still  unorganized;  indeed  before  Roosevelt 
could  be  announced. 

"This  they  did,  and  on  the  day  when  Roose 
velt  formally  announced  that  he  was  a  candidate, 
something  over  a  hundred  delegates  had  actually 
been  selected.  When  Senator  Dixon  (Roosevelt's 
manager)  took  charge  of  the  campaign,  a 
tabulated  showing  of  delegates  selected  to 
date  would  have  looked  hopelessly  one-sided. 
Moreover,  a  number  of  southern  states  had 
called  their  conventions  for  early  dates,  and 
there  was  no  chance  to  develop  the  real 
Roosevelt  strength  in  the  great  northern  states 
till  later. 

"For  psychological  effect,  as  a  move  in  prac 
tical  politics,  it  was  necessary  for  the  Roosevelt 
people  to  start  contests  on  these  early  Taft 
selections,  in  order  that  a  tabulation  of  delegate 
strength  could  be  put  out  that  would  show 
Roosevelt  holding  a  good  hand  in  the  game. 
A  table  showing  'Taft,  150;  Roosevelt,  19; 
contested,  none,  '  would  not  be  very  much 
calculated  to  inspire  confidence.  Whereas,  one 
showing  'Taft,  23;  Roosevelt,  19;  contested, 
127,'  looked  very  different. 

'That  is  the  whole  story  of  the  larger  number 
of  southern  contests  that  were  started  early 
in  the  game.  It  was  never  expected  that  they 
would  be  taken  very  seriously;  they  served  a 
useful  purpose,  and  now  the  National  Commit- 


668  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

tee  is  deciding  them  in  favor  of  Taft;  in  most 
cases  without  any  real  division." 

Beyond  any  question  it  is  true  that  during 
the  last  few  weeks  preceding  the  convention 
many  delegates  were  elected  for  Roosevelt 
because  of  the  false  claims  put  forth  by  his 
managers  that  he  had  a  large  lead  in  the  contest 
-  claims  which  they  well  knew  to  be  false  —  to 
the  number  of  at  least  150  delegates  represented 
by  "fake"  contests. 

/  The  true  psychology  of  the  Roosevelt  pro 
ceedings  at  Chicago  became  perfectly  plain. 
He  was  there  to  force  his  own  nomination  or 
to  smash  the  convention.  He  was  not  there 
to  preserve  the  integrity  of  the  Republican 
Party,  and  make  it  an  instrument  for  the 
promotion  of  Progressive  principles  and  the 
restoration  of  government  to  the  people.  Other 
wise,  he  would  have  directed  his  managers  to 
contest  every  inch  of  the  ground  for  a  Progressive 
platform  before  the  Committee  on  Resolutions 
and  in  the  open  convention.  If  he  had  evidence 
to  prove  that  Taft  could  not  be  honestly  and 
fairly  nominated,  why  did  he  not  direct  his 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912  669 

lieutenants  to  present  that  evidence  to  the 
National  Committee,  and  then  to  the  convention 
and  the  country,  so  clearly  that  the  convention 
would  not  have  dared  to  nominate  Taft  and 
that  Taft  could  not,  in  honor,  have  accepted 
the  nomination  if  made? 

The  reason  is  obvious.  An  analysis  of  the 
testimony  shows  that  neither  Taft  nor  Roose 
velt  had  a  majority  of  honestly  or  regularly 
elected  delegates.  This  the  managers  upon 
both  sides  well  understood.  Each  candidate 
was  trying  to  seat  a  sufficient  number  of  fraudu 
lently  credentialed  delegates,  added  to  those 
regularly  chosen  to  support  him,  to  secure  control 
of  the  convention  and  steam-roll  the  nomina 
tion.  It  was  a  proceeding  with  which  each  was 
acquainted  and  which  each  had  sanctioned  in 
prior  conventions.  This  explains  the  extraordi 
nary  conduct  of  Roosevelt.  He  could  not  enter 
upon  such  an  analysis  of  the  evidence  as  would 
prove  Taft's  regularly  elected  delegates  in  the 
minority,  without  inevitably  subjecting  his  own 
spuriously  credentialed  delegates  to  an  examin 
ation  so  critical  as  to  expose  the  falsity  of  his 


670  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1912 

own  contention  that  he  had  an  honestly  elected 
majority  of  the  delegates.  He  therefore  delib 
erately  chose  to  claim  everything,  to  cry  fraud, 
to  bully  the  National  Committee  and  Conven 
tion,  and  sought  to  create  a  condition  which 
would  make  impossible  a  calm  investigation  of 
cases  upon  merit,  and  to  carry  the  convention 
by  storm.  He  filled  the  public  ear  with  sound 
and  fury.  He  ruthlessly  sacrificed  everything 
to  the  one  idea  of  his  being  the  one  candidate. 
He  gagged  his  followers  in  the  convention,  with 
out  putting  on  record  any  facts  upon  which  the 
public  could  base  a  definite,  intelligent  judg 
ment  regarding  the  validity  of  Taft's  nomi 
nation.  He  submitted  no  suggestion  as  to  a 
platform  of  Progressive  principles.  He  clam 
ored  loudly  for  purging  the  convention  roll 
of  "tainted"  delegates  without  purging  his  own 
candidacy  of  his  tainted  contests,  and  his 
tainted  trust  support.  He  offered  no  reason 
for  a  third  party,  except  his  own  overmastering 
craving  for  a  third  term. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

WHY  I  CONTINUED  AS  A  CANDIDATE  —  ROOSE 
VELT  NEVER  A  PROGRESSIVE  —  HIS  RECORD 

WHEN  the  men  who  had  supported  my 
candidacy  dropped  away  from  me,  one 
by  one,  and  turned  to  Roosevelt,  as 
"a  winner,"  I  weighed,  and  impersonally  too, 
I  think,  every  phase  of  the  situation.  I  had 
gone  into  the  campaign  as  a  candidate,  believing 
that  I  had  been  so  identified  with  the  Progressive 
movement  that  my  candidacy  was  one  with  it. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  having  become  a 
candidate,  I  wanted  to  win.  I  should  not  be 
frank  if  I  did  not  admit  this  to  be  true.  Yet 
plainly,  at  any  time  during  the  campaign, 
it  would  have  been  my  duty  to  stand  aside  and 
support  the  candidacy  of  another  if,  by  so 
doing,  I  could  advance  the  Progressive  cause. 
It  was  claimed  that  Roosevelt  had  a  greater 
numerical  following  throughout  the  country 

671 


672  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

than  any  other  Republican.     But  that,  in  itself, 
was  not  enough.     It  is  one  thing  to  have   a 
candidate    of    great    popular    strength.     It    is 
another   thing   to   have   a   candidate   sincerely 
\devoted  to  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
I  cause  he  is  supposed  to  represent.     As  I  have 
before  stated  I  could  never  consent  to  play  a 
double  game  with  the  public;  I  could  not  pre 
tend  to  be  a  candidate,  when  in  fact  I  was  only  a 
dummy  for  the  real  candidate,  concerning  whose 
candidacy  the  people  were  to  be  kept  in  the 
dark.     To  withdraw  in  favor  of  Roosevelt  was 
A  quite  as  impossible,  because  to  surrender  the 
J  field  to  him  would  be  to  surrender  the  move 
ment  to  him. 

I  have  said  many  times  in  this  narrative,  and 
I  had  said  many  times  as  early  as  the  campaign 
of  1908,  that  while  giving  Roosevelt  full  credit 
for  all  of  his  preachments  for  higher  ethical 
standards  in  our  political  and  social  life,  what 
was  sorely  needed  in  this  critical  hour  was  a 
real  constructive  leader  with  a  clear  conception 
of  the  economic  problems  of  the  time.  I  had 
tested  Roosevelt's  public  record  by  the  peculiar 


i. 


AS  A  CANDIDATE 

abilities  which  manifestly  existing  conditions 
demanded,  and  he  had  not  measured  up. 
Roosevelt  at  the  close  of  his  administration 
realized  himself  that  in  arousing  the  public 
conscience  to  higher  civic  standards,  he  had 
rendered  the  service  for  which  he  was  most 
fitted,  and  admitted  frankly  his  distaste  for 
the  plodding  and  investigation  necessary  to  a 
solution  of  great  economic  questions.  This, 
indeed,  prefaced  his  appeal  for  Taft,  for  whose 
constructive  work  Roosevelt  believed  he  had 
made  the  ground  ready. 

In  a  speech  which  I  delivered  at  Racine,  Wis., 
in  the  campaign  of  1908,  I  said: 

"President  Roosevelt  has  crystallized  public 
sentiment,  and  elevated  civic  standards.  He 
will  live  in  the  history  of  his  time,  a  unique 
figure.  He  will  not  live  in  history  as  the 
author  of  any  great,  lasting  constructive  legis 
lation.  He  knows  his  office  and  his  field  better 
than  some  of  his  most  enthusiastic  supporters. 
He  knows  that  if  his  name  is  given  to  enduring 
fame,  it  will  be  because  he  has  touched  the  con 
science  of  the  foremost  nation  in  the  world,  lifted 
its  people  on  to  heights,  and  made  them  ready 
for  the  greatest  work  that  any  nation  ever  did." 


674  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

In  that  same  speech  I  commented  upon  the 
dangerous  precedent  which  Roosevelt's  action, 
in  choosing  his  successor,  tended  to  establish. 
I  said  it  was  a  "  wrong  thing,  a  dangerous  thing 
for  the  President  to  use  the  power  and  all  the 
force  of  his  administration  to  select  his  suc 
cessor." 

Repeated  experiences  with  Roosevelt  had 
convinced  me  that  in  critical  situations  his 
action  was  often  in  direct  opposition  to  his 
utterances;  that  one  could  reckon  on  his  doing, 
not  the  logical  consistent  thing  to  carry  out  a 
definite  policy,  but  the  expedient  thing,  the 
thing  that  achieves  temporary  success.  These 
elements  in  his  character  were  matters  of 
constant  disappointment  as  they  revealed  them 
selves  to  me. 

In  weighing  the  course  which  it  was  my  duty 
to  take  when  Roosevelt  became  an  open  and 
aggressive  candidate,  claiming  the  leadership  of 
the  Republican  Progressive  movement,  I  re 
viewed  the  record  of  his  official  life.  He  had 
given  utterance  to  many  strong  Progressive 
declarations.  Taken  by  themselves,  they  would 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  675 

persuade  the  most  ardent  Progressive.  At 
times  this  side  of  the  man  had  led  me  to  be  hoper 
ful  that  he  might  support  our  movement,  and 
with  his  prestige  as  a  former  President,  if  he 
would  but  hold  fast,  give  us  greatly  added 
strength.  But  to  commit  the  Progressive  cause 
to  his  control,  to  stake  all  on  his  remaining 
steadfast,  to  "follow,  follow,  follow,  wherever  he 
would  lead  "  —  quoting  the  refrain  of  those  so- 
called  Progressives  who  did  follow  him  unques- 
tioningly  —  the  thought  of  doing  this  always 
compelled  me,  whenever  this  momentous  question 
came  up  in  a  serious  way,  and  before  taking 
the  final  step,  to  go  back  along  the  course  over 
which  this  man  had  come,  and  see  whether  he 
had  left  a  straight  or  a  crooked  trail. 

Important  events  blazed  that  trail,  and 
established  its  general  course  and  direction. 
More  than  that  —  which  was  the  vital  thing  now 
—  they  pointed  the  way  he  would  certainly  go 
in  the  future.  There  was  his  record  on  the  coal 
land  bill;  his  sponsorship  for  the  Hepburn  bill, 
which  was  in  fact  little  more  than  a  sham;  his 
shiftiness  on  the  valuation  of  railroad  property  as 


676  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

a  basis  for  rate  regulation;  his  aversion  to  the 
Anti-Trust  Law,  and  his  combination  and  trust 
policy  which,  despite  his  verbal  assaults  on 
trusts,  steadily  strengthened  and  encouraged 
the  growth  of  monopoly;  his  strong  support  of 
the  Aldrich-Cannon  Standpat  tariff  program; 
his  critical  attitude  toward  Standard  Oil  coupled 
with  his  confidential  relations  with  Morgan, 
Perkins,  Frick,  Harriman,  and  those  associated 
with  them,  in  the  interlocking  directorates, 
controlling  the  Big  Business  of  the  country ;  and 
his  uniform  policy  of  opposition  to  the  Progres 
sive  movement  in  Wisconsin  and  other  states. 
Each  of  these,  by  itself,  would  shatter  for  the 
time  being  confidence  in  Roosevelt's  integrity 
of  purpose.  But  it  would  be  followed  by 
such  vigorous  and  apparently  sincere  denunci 
ation  of  the  evils  of  privilege,  as  to  make 
one  again  believe  in  and  trust  him.  When, 
however,  I  reviewed  them  in  their  relation 
one  with  another,  in  this  great  crisis  in  the 
life  of  the  Progressive  movement,  I  could 
not  conscientiously  accept  him  as  a  leader 
of  the  Progressive  movement,  and  there  was 


^S  A  CANDIDATE  677 

no  alternative  for  me  but    to    continue    as    a 
candidate. 

Roosevelt's  attitude  with  reference  to  the  coal 
land  legislation  in  1906,  detailed  in  a  previous 
chapter,  is  strikingly  characteristic.  He  had 
encouraged  me  to  believe  that  he  would  put 
back  of  this  important  legislation  all  the  power 
of  his  administration.  That  encouragement  led 
me  in  every  speech  I  made  during  the  recess, 
and  I  made  many,  to  tell  the  story  of  the  coal 
lands,  the  corrective  legislation  proposed,  and 
of  President  Roosevelt's  enthusiastic  support. 
Upon  my  return  to  Washington  at  the  beginning 
of  the  next  session  I  found  that,  as  promised, 
he  had  in  his  message  recommended  the  legis 
lation.  After  weeks  of  study  and  preparation, 
with  the  assistance  of  the  Attorney  General's 
department,  a  broad  conservation  measure  was 
evolved  which,  when  presented  to  Roosevelt, 
received  his  emphatic  approval.  But  within 
three  days  he  had  receded  from  his  position. 
Because  railroad  and  special  interest  Senators 
bitterly  opposed  the  bill,  as  they  were  certain  to 
do,  and  because  they  denounced  me  and  my 


678  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

plan  as  socialistic,  the  President  withdrew  his 
support. 

He  followed  the  same  course  with  the  Hep 
burn  bill.  When  this  measure  was  pending  in 
1906,  after  the  country  had  anxiously  waited  for 
years  for  legislation  to  strengthen  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Law,  in  conferring  with  Roosevelt,  as 
I  did  upon  his  invitation,  I  argued  the  futility  of 
passing  the  pending  bill,  which  I  had  carefully 
studied,  and  pointed  out  wherein  it  failed  to 
touch  the  basic  question  —  the  question  which 
the  country  had  patiently  waited  to  have  solved. 
He  had  not  only  tremendous  public  sentiment 
back  of  him  in  this  legislation  but  the  urgent 
appeal,  year  after  year,  of  the  Interstate  Com 
merce  Commission  for  such  amendments  to  the 
law  as  would  empower  it  effectively  to  deal  with 
this  all-important  question.  But,  because  he 
was  not  sincerely  for  a  thoroughgoing  measure, 
he  accepted  and  gave  to  the  country,  as  some 
thing  real,  a  law  which  withheld  from  the  com 
mission  all  authority  to  correct  transporta 
tion  abuses,  all  means  of  determining  and 
enforcing  just  and  reasonable  rates,  a  meas- 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  679 

ure  which,  in  every  respect,  was  fundamentally 
inadequate. 

Subsequent  developments  have  more  than 
justified  my  criticisms  of  the  Hepburn  bill  in 
1906.  Under  the  Hepburn  law,  railroad  rates 
steadily  increased.  Hundreds  of  millions  of 
dollars  have  been  wrongfully  taken  from  the 
American  people,  because  Congress  and  the 
President  failed  to  give  to  the  Interstate  Com 
merce  Commission  power  to  protect  the  public 
interest. 

One  radical  defect  in  the  Hepburn  bill  (and 
the  Interstate  Commerce  Law  is  still  defective 
in  this  regard)  was  its  omission  to  provide  for 
determining  the  true  value  of  railroad  property 
as  a  basis  for  rate  making.  Failing  to  secure  the 
adoption  of  the  valuation  amendment  which  I 
offered  in  the  Senate,  in  recording  my  vote  on 
the  passage  of  the  bill  I  warned  the  Senate 
and  the  country  that  the  measure  was  fatally 
defective;  that  the  bill  added  nothing  to  the 
existing  law  which  would  enable  the  commission 
to  determine  and  enforce  reasonable  rates;  that 
the  country  would  be  sorely  disappointed  when 


680  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

it  understood  how  little  had  been  achieved  after 
a  nine  years'  struggle  to  cure  the  vital  defects 
which  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  had 
made  apparent.  My  frank  statement  that  I 
could  not  laud  a  measure  which  I  felt  was,  in 
large  degree,  a  sham,  I  had  reason  to  know  dis 
pleased  Roosevelt,  for  the  Hepburn  bill  was  an 
administration  measure  and  went  to  the  coun 
try  as  a  great  achievement. 

Early  in  the  next  session,  while  filling  an  en 
gagement  in  New  York,  in  January,  1907,  a  long 
distance  telephone  message  from  William  Loeb, 
Secretary  to  President  Roosevelt,  requested  me, 
immediately  upon  my  return  to  Washington, 
to  call  at  the  White  House  upon  an  important 
matter.  The  President  greeted  me  cordially 
when  I  called.  He  began  his  conversation  by 
saying  that  he  had  been  angered  with  me  for 
the  attacks  I  had  made  upon  the  Hepburn  bill, 
which  at  the  time  he  thought  were  unnecessary 
and  unjustifiable;  that  he  had,  however,  been 
looking  into  my  criticisms,  and  the  amendments 
I  had  offered;  that  he  was  now  convinced 
I  was  right,  and  that  my  amendments  were 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  681 

important  and  essential  to  the  bill,  particularly 
the  valuation  amendment;  that  he  had  become 
satisfied  that  valuation  was  necessary  to  any 
reasonable  regulation  of  railway  rates.  He  had 
determined,  he  said,  to  take  this  matter  up 
and  push  it,  and  had  sent  for  me  to  request 
me  to  prepare  for  him  the  best  statement  I 
could,  presenting  in  terse  form  the  importance  of 
valuation.  Such  statement  he  proposed  to  use 
as  the  basis  of  a  letter  to  the  Interstate  Com 
merce  Commission  on  the  subject  of  valuation. 
He  said  he  would  give  this  letter  to  the  press,  and 
would  do  all  he  could  to  awaken  public  interest 
in  the  subject;  that  he  would  follow  it  up  in 
some  addresses  he  intended  to  make  after  the 
adjournment,  and  when  Congress  met  in  Decem 
ber  he  would  urge  that  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission  be  authorized  to  ascertain  the  value 
of  the  railroad  property  of  the  country.  He 
assured  me  he  would  make  my  bill  for  rail 
way  valuation,  then  pending,  an  administration 
measure,  and  do  everything  in  his  power  to  put 
it  through.  I  prepared  with  care  the  statement 
he  had  requested,  adding  to  it  some  suggestions 


682  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

for  improvement  of  the  administrative  features 
of  the  existing  law,  and  placed  it  in  his  hands. 

Shortly  thereafter  I  received  several  calls 
from  newspaper  correspondents  who  came  to 
make  inquiry  of  me  as  to  Rossevelt's  taking  up 
the  subject  of  railroad  valuation  with  the  Inter 
state  Commerce  Commission,  and  his  intention 
of  giving  it  a  prominent  place  in  the  administra 
tion  program  of  legislation  at  the  next  session. 
The  accuracy  of  their  information  led  me  to 
believe  that  it  had  come  from  White  House 
sources,  but  I  did  not  feel  at  liberty  to  admit 
any  knowledge  of  what  the  President  proposed 
to  do.  Leading  newspapers  the  next  day  set 
forth  in  considerable  detail  the  purpose  of  the 
President  to  address  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission  upon  the  subject  of  valuation,  to 
present  the  matter  in  speeches  during  the  sum 
mer,  and  urgently  to  Congress  in  a  message  at 
the  next  session. 

Again  I  experienced  great  gratification  in  the 
belief  that  Roosevelt  really  intended  to  do  what 
he  had  told  me  he  would  do.  And  I  felt  perfectly 
sure  that  with  the  power  of  his  administration 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  683 

back  of  it,  the  valuation  bill  would  go  through, 
establishing  at  last  the  vital  principle  of  jscien-   * 
tific  rate-making. 

But  I  waited  in  vain  for  the  appearance  of 
his  open  letter  to  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission,  or  for  some  further  word.  If  he 
wrote  such  a  letter  to  the  commission,  I  never 
heard  of  it.  The  next  expression  from  him  upon 
the  subject  of  railway  valuation  was  on  the 
occasion  of  the  unveiling  of  the  Lawton  statue, 
at  Indianapolis,  May  30,  1907.  In  this  address 
he  took  the  position  that,  except  as  to  some  of 
the  small  lines,  the  railroads  of  the  country 
generally  were  not  overcapitalized  at  all,  and 
that  railway  valuation  was  not  the  essential 
basis  for  ascertaining  and  enforcing  reasonable 
rates. 

I  reviewed  also  Roosevelt's  course  upon  trusts 
and  combinations.  The  American  people  believe 
private  monopoly  intolerable.  Within  the  last 
dozen  years  trusts  and  combinations  have  been 
organized  in  nearly  every  branch  of  industry. 
Competition  has  been  ruthlessly  crushed,  extor 
tionate  prices  have  been  exacted  from  consumers, 


684  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

independent  business  development  has  been 
arrested,  invention  stifled,  and  the  door  of  oppor 
tunity  has  been  closed,  except  to  large  aggre 
gations  of  capital.  The  public  has  not,  as  a 
rule,  received  any  of  the  resultant  economies  and 
benefits  of  combination  which  have  been  so 
abundantly  promised.  But  ordinarily  the  com 
binations  have  demonstrated  that  the  hand  of 
monopoly  is  deadening,  and  that  business  may 
as  easily  become  too  large  to  be  efficient,  as 
remain  too  small.  And  as  related  to  govern 
ment,  it  is  everywhere  recognized  that  trusts 
and  combinations  are  to-day  the  gravest  danger 
menacing  our  free  institutions. 

Since  Lincoln's  time  no  man  was  ever  offered 
such  an  opportunity  to  strike  an  effective  blow 
for  his  country  as  was  presented  to  Roosevelt 
when  he  became  President.  Compared  with 
the  conditions  seven  and  one  half  years  later, 
the  trusts  and  combinations  at  the  beginning  of 
his  term  were  but  a  handful.  Limited  in  num 
ber,  they  stood  unsupported,  each  by  itself. 
They  had  not  yet  been  fused  and  welded  to 
gether  with  the  Morgan  system  of  interlocking 


Copyright  by  Harris  6*  Ewing 

"Since  Lincoln's  time,  no  man  was  ever  offered  such  an  opportunity  to 

strike  an  effective  blow  for  his  country  as  was  presented  to  Roosevelt 

when  he  became  President." 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  685 

directorates.  All  told,  there  were  but  one 
hundred  and  forty-nine.  This  was  the  most 
critical  time  in  the  whole  history  of  trust  for 
mation.  It  was  as  though  the  country  were 
menaced  by  a  fatal  plague  —  as  though  it  had 
gained  a  dangerous  footing  here  and  there  in 
the  most  populous  districts,  where  its  deadly 
ravages  were  beginning  to  create  distress  and 
consternation.  It  was  a  case  for  strict  quaran 
tine  and  extermination;  a  period  when  such 
treatment  would  not  affect  the  whole  community 
but  when  those  responsible  for  the  conditions 
could  be  reached  without  hardship  or  suffering 
to  the  innocent. 

The  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law,  in  existence 
at  that  time,  declared  combinations  to  suppress 
competition  and  create  or  attempt  to  create 
monopoly  to  be  criminal. 

In  plain  terms  this  law  provided  that: 

"Every  contract,  combination  in  the  form 
of  trust  or  otherwise,  or  conspiracy  in  restraint 
of  trade  or  commerce  among  the  several  states, 
or  with  foreign  nations,  is  hereby  declared  to  be 
illegal." 


686  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

The  law  provided  further  that  "  every  person" 
making  "any  such  contract"  or  engaging  in 
"any  such  combination  or  conspiracy,"  and 
"every  person  who  shall  monopolize  or  attempt 
to  monopolize,  or  combine,  or  conspire  with  any 
other  person  to  monopolize  any  part  of  the  trade 
or  commerce  among  the  several  states,"  shall 
be  deemed  guilty  of  a  misdemeanor,  and  subject 
on  conviction  to  be  "punished  by  a  fine  not 
exceeding  five  thousand  dollars  or  by  imprison 
ment  not  exceeding  one  year." 

As  said  by  Judge  Stewart,  of  Vermont,  in  clos 
ing  the  debate  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
when  the  law  was  enacted  in  1890: 

"The  provisions  of  this  trust  bill  are  just  as 
broad,  sweeping,  and  explicit  as  the  English 
language  can  make  them  to  express  the  power 
of  Congress  on  this  subject  under  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States." 

The  enactment  of  this  law  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  Executive  the  strongest,  most 
perfect  weapon  which  the  ingenuity  of  man 
could  forge  for  the  protection  of  the  people  of 
this  country  against  the  power  and  sordid  greed 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  687 

of  monopoly.  And  its  vigorous  and  sincere 
enforcement  at  the  time  Theodore  Roosevelt 
entered  upon  his  first  term  of  office  as  President 
would  have  crushed  and  destroyed  the  com 
paratively  few  trusts  which  were  then  in  exis 
tence. 

How  did  President  Roosevelt  treat  conspira 
cies  against  the  free  markets  of  our  country 
which  the  law  prohibited  as  criminal  combina 
tions?  Not  as  the  law  treated  them.  The  law 
clearly  defined  them,  and  imposed  upon  the 
Executive  Department  of  the  government  the 
obligation  to  make  an  end  of  them.  Instead,  in 
his  messages  and  public  addresses,  one  finds  the 
new  President  setting  himself  up  as  superior 
to  the  law.  He  began  by  confusing  the  public 
mind.  He  assumed  that  there  was  no  adequate 
legislation  dealing  with  the  subject  of  combina 
tions,  and  attempts  on  the  part  of  any  person  or 
corporation  to  monopolize  trade.  In  his  first 
message  to  Congress,  he  stated  it  as  his  judg 
ment  that  "combination  and  concentration 
should  be,  not  prohibited,  but  supervised,  and 
within  reasonable  limits  controlled." 


688  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

The  law,  in  plain  terms,  prohibited  even 
"every  attempt  to  monopolize,"  and  declared 
"every  contract,  combination  in  the  form  of 
trust  or  otherwise,  or  conspiracy  in  restraint  of 
trade,"  to  be  illegal.  It  said  nothing  about 
supervising  or  controlling  these  combinations 
"within  reasonable  limits."  At  that  time  it 
would  have  been  a  simple  matter  to  execute  the 
law.  This  it  was  the  President's  sworn  duty 
to  do.  Instead  of  enforcing  obedience  to  the 
statute,  Roosevelt  in  his  first  message  warned 
the  country  that  "the  mechanism  of  modern 
business  is  so  delicate  that  extreme  care  must 
be  taken  not  to  interfere  with  it  in  a  spirit  of 
rashness  or  ignorance.  "Much  of  the  legislation 
directed  at  the  trusts,"  he  asserted,  "  would 
have  been  exceedingly  mischievous  had  it  not 
also  been  entirely  ineffective."  While  admit 
ting  the  existence  of  "great  industrial  com 
binations,"  he  made  no  appeal  to  the  public  to 
sustain  the  law  and  evinced  no  disposition  to  en 
force  that  great  statute  which  the  statesmanship 
of  Sherman,  Edmunds,  Hoar,  Turpie,  Taylor, 
Culberson,  Stewart,  and  the  ablest  men  of  their 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  689 

time  had  given  us  to  meet  these  very  changes. 
Instead  he  twisted  and  turned  and  wound  about 
with  words,  blurring  and  smearing  the  dis 
cussion  and  vaguely  suggesting  the  need  of 
"publicity"  and  the  probable  necessity  of  a 
"constitutional  amendment,"  finally  and  em 
phatically  warning  Congress  and  the  country 
against  "ignorant  and  reckless  agitators,"  and 
pleading  throughout  for  "calm  and  sober  self- 
restraint." 

In  an  address  delivered  at  Providence  on  the 
twenty-third  of  August,  1902,  less  than  a  year 
after  he  became  President,  referring  to  the 
"great  corporations  which  we  have  grown  to 
speak  of  rather  loosely  as  'trusts,'"  he  says: 

"Now,  the  conditions  are  complicated,  and 
we  find  it  hard  to  frame  national  legislation 
which  shall  be  adequate;  while  as  a  matter  of 
practical  experience  it  has  been  shown  that  the 
states  either  cannot  or  will  not  exercise  a  suffi 
cient  control  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  case." 

And  again: 

"I  believe  that  the  nation  must  assume  this 
power  of  control  by  legislation;  if  necessary  by 


690  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

constitutional  amendment.  .  .  .  The  trust 
nowadays  is  a  large  state  corporation  which 
generally  does  business  in  other  states,  often 
with  a  tendency  toward  monopoly.  Such  a  trust 
is  an  artificial  creature,  not  wholly  responsible 
to  or  controllable  by  any  legislation,  either  by 
state  or  nation,  and  not  subject  to  the  jurisdic 
tion  of  any  one  court." 

The  very  case  he  puts  comes  within  the  specific 
terms  of  the  Sherman  Act,  as  quoted  above: 

"Section  2.  Every  person  (corporation)  who 
shall  monopolize  or  attempt  to  monopolize 
.  ..  ?v  any  part  of  the  trade  or  commerce 
among  the  several  states,  shall  be  deemed 
guilty,"  etc. 

And  then,  ignoring  the  strong  statute  which 
he  ought  to  have  enforced,  and  after  arguing 
further  the  need  of  conferring  additional  power 
upon  the  national  government,  he  says: 

"When  it  has  been  given  full  power,  then 
this  full  power  can  be  used  to  control  any  evil 
influence." 

That  is,  the  power  which  the  government 
already  had,  but  which  he  was  contending  had 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  691 

yet  to  be  provided,  when  supplied,  should  not 
be  used  to  destroy  the  trusts,  but  "to  control 
any  evil  influence."  He  argues  further  that 
the  government  must  be  very  careful  not  to  con 
trol  too  harshly,  lest  the  trust  be  injured. 
In  the  very  next  sentence  he  says: 

"When  the  power  has  been  granted,  it  would 
be  most  unwise  to  exercise  it  too  much  -  -  to 
begin  by  too  stringent  legislation." 

Throughout  this  and  later  addresses  runs  the 
constant  admonition  that  these  trusts  are  great 
public  benefactors,  great  national  assets.  We 
are  reminded  that  we  are  prospering,  and  warned 
against  attacks  made  upon  wealth,  "not  merely 
individual,  but  corporate."  He  says: 

"If,  in  a  spirit  of  sullen  envy,  they  (the  peo 
ple)  insist  upon  pulling  down  those  who  have 
profited  most  in  the  years  of  fatness,  they  will 
bury  themselves  in  the  crash  of  the  common 
disaster." 

And  again: 

"The  great  captain  of  industry,  the  man  of 
wealth,  who  alone  or  in  combination  with  his 


AS  A  CANDIDATE 

fellows,  drives  through  our  great  business  enter 
prises,  is  a  factor,  without  whom  the  civiliza 
tion  that  we  see  round  about  ils  here  (he  was 
speaking  in  Senator  Aldrich's  home  city)  could 
not  have  been  built  up.  Good,  not  harm, 
normally  comes  from  the  upbuilding  of  such 
wealth." 

Is  it  to  be  marvelled  at  that  the  trusts  were 
encouraged  to  multiply  their  organizations,  and 
flood  the  land  with  watered  securities? 

In  an  address  delivered  at  Boston  on  the 
twenty -fifth  of  August,  1902,  he  reiterated 
his  claim  that  it  was  still  a  mooted  question 
whether  the  federal  government  had  any  power 
to  deal  with  the  trust  question.  He  said: 

"Now  one  of  the  great  troubles  —  I  am  in 
clined  to  think  much  the  greatest  trouble  —  in 
any  immediate  handling  of  the  question  of  the 
trusts  comes  from  our  system  of  government. 
Under  this  system  it  is  difficult  to  say  where  the 
power  is  lodged  to  deal  with  these  evils." 

The  same  misleading  assertions  run  through 
the  whole  address.  Note  this: 

"Now,  if  we  can  get  adequate  control  by  the 
nation  of  these  great  corporations,  then  we 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  693 

can  pass  legislation  which  will  give  us  the  power 
of  regulation  and  supervision  over  them.  If 
the  nation  had  that  power,  mind  you,  I  should 
advocate  as  strenuously  as  I  knew  how,  that 
the  power  should  be  exercised  with  extreme 
caution  and  self-restraint.' 


Five  years  later  he  exercised  the  power  to  enforce 
the  Sherman  Law  with  "extreme caution  and  self- 
restraint  "  when  he  permitted  Morgan,  Gary  and 
Perkins  for  the  Steel  Trust  to  absorb  its  principal 
rival,  the  Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Company. 

At  Wheeling,  W.  Va.,  September  6,  1902, 
again  he  impressed  upon  his  hearers  the  thought 
that  there  was  no  sufficient  remedy  for  the 
trust  evil,  and  that  they  must  still  suffer  the 
growth  and  spread  of  combinations,  until  further 
legislation  could  be  enacted;  that  perhaps  they 
must  await  the  slow  process  of  constitutional 
amendment.  He  said: 

"But,  gentlemen,  I  firmly  believe  that  in 
the  end  power  must  be  given  to  the  national 
government  to  exercise  in  full  supervision  and 
regulation  of  these  great  enterprises  and  if 
necessary,  a  constitutional  amendment  must  be 
resorted  to  for  this  purpose." 


694  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

This  doctrine  when  firmly  planted  in  the 
public  mind  would  excuse  and  justify  shilly 
shallying  with  the  trusts  throughout  his  whole 
term  of  service. 

After  his  election  in  1904,  he  becomes  some 
what  more  definite.  He  is  more  pronounced  in 
his  commendation  of  the  great  corporations, 
their  benefits  to  business  and  society.  He 
rejoices  in  "the  marvellous  prosperity  we  are 
enjoying"  and  shows  a  growing  appreciation  of 
the  valuable  services  of  the  Morgans  and  the 
McCormicks,  "the  industrial  leaders  of  the 
nation." 

In  his  message,  December,  1904,  he  found  it 
expedient  to  remind  Congress  that: 

"Great  corporations  are  necessary  and  only 
'men  of  great  and  singular  mental  power  can 
?^    manage  such  corporations  successfully,  and  such 
men  must  have  great  rewards." 

And  again  he  says: 

"If  the  less  fortunate  man  is  moved  by  envy 
of  his  more  fortunate  brother  to  strike  at  the 
conditions  under  which  they  have  both,  though 
unequally,  prospered,  the  result  will  assuredly 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  695 

be  that  while  damage  may  come  to  the  one 
struck  at,  it  will  visit  with  an  even  heavier  load 
the  one  who  strikes  the  blow." 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  this  was  the  same 
President  who  later  ordered  his  attorney  gen 
eral  not  to  file  a  suit  against  the  Harvester 
Trust  until  he  received  "further  instructions." 

Congress  required  no  restraining  influence 
from  the  White  House  to  hold  it  in  leash  against 
the  combinations  which  were  fast  throttling 
competition.  For  years  it  had  been  the  bul 
wark  of  privilege  for  the  special  interests.  But 
running  through  all  of  his  utterances  as  Presi 
dent,  we  find  him  warning  Congress  to  hold 
itself  in  check,  lest  it  go  too  far. 

Not  only  was  the  Cannon-controlled  House 
and  the  Aldrich-controlled  Senate  admonished 
not  to  take  his  very  general  recommendations 
"to  assert  the  sovereignty  of  the  national 
government  by  affirmative  action"  too  seriously, 
but  they  were  cautioned  to  beware  of  the 
agitator  and  the  demagogue: 

"To  try  to  deal  with  them  (the  corporations) 
in  an  intemperate,  destructive,  or  demagogic 


696  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

spirit  would,  in  all  probability,  mean  that 
nothing  whatever  would  be  accomplished,  and, 
with  absolute  certainty  that  if  anything  were 
accomplished,  it  would  be  of  a  harmful  nature." 

It  is  little  less  than  grotesque  to  find  the 
President  solicitous  lest  the  veterans  of  privilege, 
the  seasoned  bosses  of  Congress,  be  swept  off 
their  feet  by  an  "  intemperate,  destructive  or 
demagogic  spirit." 

Throughout  his  second  administration,  having 
declared  that  he  would  not  accept  a  third  term, 
year  by  year  Roosevelt  showed  his  real  opposi 
tion  to  the  Sherman  Anti -Trust  Law.  It  became 
plain  that  his  failure  to  vigorously  enforce  the 
statute  against  the  competition-destroying  trusts 
was  because  he  was  opposed  to  the  law.  He 
boldly  asserted  that  "this  is  an  age  of  combina 
tion";  that  it  was  "unfortunate  that  national 
laws  "  on  corporations  "have  sought  to  prohibit 
what  could  not  be  effectively  prohibited." 

True  enough,  combinations  "could  not  be 
effectively  prohibited"  if  a  President  was  deter 
mined  that  they  should  not  be  prohibited  at  all. 

By    1907  he    apparently    believed  that   the 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  697 

Sherman  Law  —  with  which  he  had  played 
fast  and  loose  for  six  years  —  was  sufficiently 
discredited  with  the  public  to  make  its  open 
denunciation  timely.  And  he  flatly  tells  Con 
gress  that: 

"It  is  profoundly  immoral  to  put  or  keep 
on  the  statute  books  a  law,  nominally  in  the 
interest  of  public  morality,  that  really  puts  a 
premium  on  public  immorality,  by  undertaking 
to  forbid  honest  men  from  doing  what  must 
be  done  under  jnodern  business  conditions,  so 
that  the  law  itself  provides  that  its  own  infrac 
tion  must  be  the  condition  precedent  upon 
business  success." 

Here  is  a  frank  declaration  from  Roosevelt 
that  it  was  immoral  to  put  the  Sherman  Law 
on  the  statute  books  —  that  it  is  immoral  to 
keep  it  there.  Why  immoral?  Because  he 
says,  "it  undertakes  to  forbid  honest  men  from 
doing  what  must  be  done  under  modern  business 
conditions." 

What  does  the  law  forbid?  It  forbids  com 
binations  organized  to  suppress  competition  and 
create  or  attempt  to  create  monopoly.  That 
is  exactly  what  it  does  and  all  it  does.  It  is  that 


698  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

sort  of  business  that  Roosevelt  characterized 
as  the  business  which  "honest  men"  must  do 
under  modern  business  conditions.  That  is  the 
contention  of  the  Steel  Trust,  the  Beef  Trust, 
the  Elevator  Trust.  It  is  the  trust  argument 
for  the  trust  method.  It  is  the  only  rule  under 
which  the  trust  can  do  business,  and  the  "mod 
ern  business"  method  under  which  no  one  but 
the  trust  can  do  business. 

Is  it  strange  that  with  a  President  uttering 
such  doctrines  in  his  messages  the  law  was  made 
a  dead  letter  and  unlawful  trusts  and  combina 
tions  suppressing  competition  and  increasing 
prices  upon  the  consumer  flourished  under  his 
administration  ? 

Could  United  States  district  attorneys,  who 
wanted  to  continue  in  office,  or  federal  judges 
who  might  be  willing  to  accept  promotion  at 
the  hands  of  this  President,  be  expected  to 
respect  or  seek  to  uphold  this  law  when  that 
President  would  say  in  a  message  to  Congress 
that: 

"It  is  a  public  evil  to  have  on  the  statute 
books  a  law  incapable  of  full  enforcement, 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  699 

because  both  judges  and  juries  realize  that  its 
full  enforcement  would  destroy  the  business  of 
the  country." 

Thus  it  was  that  Roosevelt  put  the  Sherman 
Anti-Trust  Law  under  the  ban  of  executive 
disapproval.  It  was  the  only  federal  statute  for 
the  protection  of  the  public  against  these 
plundering  combinations.  His  denunciation  of 
the  law  was  an  executive  sanction  to  violate  the  I 
law.  It  opened  the  floodgates  for  trust  organi-J 
zation,  and  upon  Theodore  Roosevelt,  more 
than  any  other  man,  must  rest  the  responsibility 
for  the  gravest  problem  which  ever  menaced 
the  industrial  freedom  of  the  American  people. 

He  prosecuted  on  an  average  six  cases  a  year 
against  a  carefully  selected  list  of  these  combina 
tions.  He  went  just  far  enough  to  give  color 
to  the  claim  that  he  was  upholding  the  law, 
but  not  far  enough  seriously  to  injure  those 
prosecuted  or  deter  in  the  slightest  degree  the 
hundreds  that  were  organizing  every  month 
throughout  his  entire  administration. 

A  study  of  the  more  important  of  these  cases 
against  combinations  under  the  Sherman  Act> 


700  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

shows  that  the  actions  were  so  brought  that  the 
government  would,  at  best,  win  only  a  nominal 
victory;  and  that  the  decree  of  the  court  would 
be  so  limited  by  the  allegation  of  the  complaint 
as  to  leave  the  defendant  combination  in  a  posi 
tion,  under  its  existing  form  or  by  an  easy  shift, 
to  continue  its  wrongdoing. 

As  stated  above,  when  Roosevelt  became 
President  there  were  149  combinations  and 
trusts,  including  railways,  the  entire  149  having 
a  total  stock  and  bond  issue  of  only  $3,784,000,- 
000.  When  he  left  the  White  House  there  were 
10,020  of  these  monster  plants  in  combination, 
including,  with  the  combined  railroads,,  a  total 
capitalization  amounting  to  the  enormous  sum 
of  $31,672,000,000  — more  than  70  per  cent,  of 
which  was  water.  The  power  of  these  combina 
tions  was  so  extensive  and  so  completely  did 
they  suppress  competition,  that  they  were  able 
to  advance  prices  on  transportation,  and  on 
the  products  of  the  mines  and  factories  to  enable 
them  to  pay  dividends  on  this  fictitious  and 
fraudulent  over-capitalization. 

The   organization   of   these   combinations   in 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  701 

transportation,  mining,  manufacturing,  the  con 
trol  of  markets  and  also  of  money  and  credit, 
was  largely  consummated  during  the  seven  years 
that  Roosevelt  was  President,  and  in  direct  viola 
tion  of  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law.  Under  the 
terms  of  that  law  those  engaging  in  unlawful 
conspiracies  were  subject  to  punishment  by 
both  fine  and  imprisonment.  Moreover,  under 
its  provisions,  every  such  combination  could 
have  been  enjoined,  and  a  violation  of  the  in- 
junctive  order  would  have  been  punishable  by 
imprisonment  for  contempt.  As  a  rule  criminal 
statutes  simply  define  the  offence  and  prescribe 
the  punishment.  But  the  author  of  this  law, 
anticipating  the  powerful  influence  which  such 
aggregations  of  wealth  might  exert  to  suppress 
prosecutions,  embodied  in  the  statute,  in  specific 
terms,  a  provision  making  it  the  duty  of  the 
Executive  Department  to  enforce  the  law.  If 
President  Roosevelt,  at  the  beginning  of  his 
administration,  when  there  were  but  149  trusts 
and  combinations,  had  used  all  the  power  of 
this  great  government  to  enforce  the  anti 
trust  law;  if  he  had  summoned  to  Washington 


702  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

every  United  States  district  attorney  and  had 
called  in  the  Attorney  General  and  his  assistants 
and  had  said  to  them:  "There  are  149  combi 
nations  already  organized  to  suppress  competi 
tion  and  control  the  markets;  if  this  law  is  ever 
to  be  enforced,  vigorous  thoroughgoing  action 
on  the  part  of  the  government  must  be  no  longer 
delayed;  these  organizations  have  been  formed 
in  violation  of  the  federal  statute;  that  statute 
makes  it  the  duty  of  the  United  States  district 
attorneys  acting  under  the  Attorney  General 
to  destroy  these  criminal  conspiracies  against 
the  people;  it  is  your  duty  to  enforce  this  law; 
it  is  my  duty  as  President  to  see  that  you  do 
enforce  it;  unless  you  begin  and  prosecute 
criminal  actions  against  every  one  of  these 
unlawful  conspiracies,  I  will  revoke  your  com 
missions,  and  appoint  an  Attorney  General  and 
United  States  district  attorneys  who  will  enforce 
the  law." 

Had  the  President  of  the  United  States  at 
that  time,  I  say,  taken  this  strong  stand,  there 
would  not  have  been  a  criminal  conspiracy 
violating  this  statute  in  existence  at  the  end  of 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  703 

ninety  days.  It  would  have  saved  the  people 
of  this  country  the  payment  of  hundreds  of 
millions  of  dollars  wrongfully  taken  from  them 
year  after  year  in  excessive  transportation  rates 
and  in  extortionate  prices  which  they  have  had 
to  pay  for  the  necessaries  of  life.  Had  this  been 
done  before  these  combined  monopolies  acquired 
such  absolute  mastery,  the  people  would  not  now 
be  confronted  with  this  momentous  question  - 
are  these  trusts  and  combinations  stronger  than 
the  government  itself?  Can  the  people  free 
themselves  from  this  mighty  power?  Can  the 
unjust  burden  of  fraudulent  capitalization  be 
lifted  from  them? 

The  trusts  and  combinations,  the  railroads, 
the  steel  trust,  the  coal  trust,  all  are  scheming 
to  secure  some  action  by  the  government  which 
will  legalize  their  proceedings  and  sanction  their 
fictitious  capitalization.  The  situation  is  crit 
ical.  It  may  be  expected  from  the  attitude  of 
the  Supreme  Court  as  shown  by  the  decisions 
in  the  Standard  Oil  and  Tobacco  cases  that  any 
act  on  the  part  of  the  executive  or  legislative 
branch  of  government  giving  countenance  to  a 


704  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

trust  or  combination  will  be  construed  as  an 
approval  of  the  thousands  of  millions  of  watered 
stocks  and  bonds  issued,  and  will  fasten  upon  the 
people  for  all  time  the  speculative  capitalization 
of  our  public  service  and  business  corporations. 
Roosevelt  contends  that  there  is  no  over 
capitalization  in  the  great  railroad  corporations 
of  the  country.  And  as  to  other  overcapitalized 
combinations  he  contends  when  once  they  have 
issued  their  fictitious  capitalization  and  sold 
their  stocks  and  bonds  to  speculators,  ever 
ready  to  take  chances  on  investments  promising 
enormous  returns,  regardless  of  the  actual  invest 
ment  underlying  these  fictitious  securities,  they 
shall  nevertheless  be  protected,  and  the  people 
forever  compelled  to  pay  extortionate  prices  in 
order  to  furnish  a  return  to  such  investors  upon 
these  watered  stocks  and  bonds.  That  this  is 
exactly  his  position  is  made  clear  from  the  fol 
lowing  quotation  from  his  special  message  to 
Congress  on  January  31,  1908: 

"When  once  inflated  capitalization  has  gone 
upon  the  market  and  has  become  fixed  in  value, 
its  existence  must  be  recognized.  .  .  .  The 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  705 

usual  result  of  such  inflation  is,  therefore,  to 
impose  upon  the  public  an  unnecessary  but 
everlasting  tax." 

The  fact  that  the  "inflated  capitalization  has 
gone  upon  the  market,"  the  fact  that  a  corpora 
tion  issues  watered  stocks  and  that  those  who 
trade  upon  an  innocent  public  buy  the  watered 
stocks  which  can  be  made  to  pay  large  profits 
only  by  maintaining  an  unlawful  control  of  the 
markets  and  exacting  wrongful  prices  from  the 
people,  according  to  Roosevelt's  theory,  gives 
to  these  spurious  securities  "a  fixed  value" 
which  must  be  recognized,  and  that  "such 
inflation"  is  therefore  an  "everlasting  tax." 
It  is  Roosevelt's  position  that  while  he  is  very 
sorry,  nevertheless  nothing  can  be  done  to 
relieve  the  people  from  the  "everlasting  tax" 
due  to  the  billions  of  dollars  of  watered  stocks 
which  have  been  wrongfully  issued.  The  inno 
cent  public  must  groan  under  the  burden  of 
paying  prices  high  enough  to  make  a  profit  to 
the  holders  of  such  stocks  upon  a  grossly  in 
flated  capitalization. 

It  will  be  the  impartial  verdict  of  history  that 


706  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

the  executive  could  have  saved  the  people  from 
the  appalling  conditions  which  confront  us  to 
day,  if  all  the  power  of  this  great  government 
had  been  put  forth  to  enforce  the  Anti-Trust  Law. 
Five  or  six  prosecutions  a  year,  dragging  along 
in  the  courts  at  a  snail's  pace  were  little  more 
than  notice  to  these  business  kings  that  they 
might  proceed  to  set  up  their  authority  against 
the  government  and  extend  their  dominion  over 
trade  and  transportation;  that  there  was  no  real 
danger  of  the  law  being  so  enforced  as  to  do 
much  more  than  to  affect  the  political  situation 
from  time  to  time. 

I  could  not  forget  in  my  review  of  Roosevelt's 
record  that  while  President  he  was  a  reactionary 
on  tariff  revision.  His  constant  criticism  of  the 
Anti-Trust  Law  greatly  encouraged  trust  growth 
and  trust  activity,  which  was  still  further 
stimulated  by  his  course  upon  the  tariff.  Two 
opportunities  presented  themselves  to  him  to 
relieve  the  people  from  trust  oppression:  one, 
the  enforcement  of  the  Sherman  Act;  the  other, 
a  radical  reduction  of  the  Dingley  tariff  duties. 

I  have  already  made  it  plain  that  from  the 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  707 

first  he  was  opposed  to  enforcing  the  Anti-Trust 
Law.  Let  us  see  how  he  behaved  regarding  the 
tariff. 

The  Dingley  law  was  enacted  in  1897,  with 
the  avowed  purpose  of  excluding,  in  so  far  as 
possible,  foreign  manufacturers  from  the  Ameri 
can  market.  With  free  competition  between 
American  manufacturers,  prices  would  have 
been  reduced  to  the  lowest  point  that  could  be 
fixed,  still  leaving  to  the  American  workman 
fair  protection.  But  with  foreign  competition 
excluded  by  the  high  tariff  wall,  and  domestic 
competition  destroyed  by  the  formation  of  com-  y 
binations  made  possible  under  Roosevelt's  treat 
ment  of  trusts,  prices  rapidly  advanced  and 
very  early  in  Roosevelt's  administration  the 
people  feeling  the  burden,  and  no  relief  coming 
to  them  through  the  rigid  enforcement  of  the 
Sherman  law,  began  petitioning  for  tariff 
revision.  They  had  begun  to  understand  that 
if  the  tariff  rates  were  lowered,  foreign  competi 
tion  would  reduce  the  high  prices  fixed  by  the 
trusts  and  combinations  formed  by  our  manu 
facturers  behind  the  tariff  wall.  They  were 


708  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

quick  to  see  that  there  was  one  direct,  simple 
way  to  reduce  the  high  cost  of  living  and  curtail 
the  power  of  monopoly.  And  year  after  year 
they  pled  for  tariff  revision. 

Roosevelt  was  afraid  of  the  tariff  issue. 
He  had  turned  sharp  corners  on  the  tariff 
question  from  the  day  he  entered  public  life. 
He  was  a  member  of  the  Free  Trade  Club  of 
New  York  from  1881  until  after  Elaine's  nomi 
nation  upon  a  strong  protective  platform  in 
1884.  He  was  opposed  to  Elaine.  He  was 
opposed  to  a  protective  tariff.  But  following 
his  natural  bent  to  do  the  expedient  thing,  he 
resigned  as  a  member  of  the  Free  Trade  Club 
after  Elaine's  nomination,  and  became  an  ardent 
advocate  of  Elaine's  election,  a  Elaine  protec 
tionist,  a  Elaine  supporter.  In  his  letter  of  resig 
nation  to  the  New  York  Free  Trade  Club,  he  said : 

"It  is  impossible  to  combine  the  functions  of 
a  guerilla  chief  with  those  of  a  colonel  in  the 
regular  army." 

So,  he  decided  to  drop  his  convictions,  and  be 
a  regular  colonel. 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  709 

As  the  pressure  for  tariff  revision  grew  stronger 
and  stronger,  Roosevelt's  first  impulse  was  to 
do  the  popular  thing,  and  yield  to  the  demand  for 
tariff  revision.  In  one  of  his  regular  messages 
to  Congress,  he  inserted  a  paragraph  announcing 
that  later  in  the  session  he  would  send  to  Con 
gress  a  special  message  on  tariff  revision. 

The  President's  regular  messages  are  pre 
pared  long  enough  before  their  transmission  to 
Congress  to  admit  of  advance  copies  being  sent 
out  by  mail  to  the  leading  papers  of  the  coun 
try,  to  the  end  that  they  may  be  placed  in  type, 
ready  to  be  printed  on  the  day  of  their  delivery. 
These  advance  copies  are  marked  "Confiden 
tial."  They  are  released  for  publication  on  the 
day  they  are  read  in  Congress. 

After  this  message  was  given  to  the  press  and 
before  it  was  released  for  printing,  all  news 
papers  receiving  it  were  notified  by  wire  to  strike 
out  the  paragraph  promising  a  special  message 
on  tariff  revision.  Whether  the  interests  op 
posed  to  tariff  reduction  learned  through  reac 
tionary  papers  of  this  proposed  special  message 
on  tariff  revision  and  bore  down  upon  Roosevelt 


710  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

to  withdraw  the  paragraph  can  only  be  inferred, 
but  that  something  happened  to  persuade  Roose 
velt  to  face  about  on  tariff  revision  is  certain, 
for  the  paragraph  promising  revision  disappeared 
from  the  message  before  it  was  transmitted  to 
Congress  and  printed  in  the  newspapers  of  the 
country.  It  was  another  instance  of  the  many 
which  mark  Roosevelt's  public  career,  when,  con 
fronted  with  the  alternative  of  serving  the 
people  or  privilege,  he  found  it  more  expedient 
to  serve  privilege. 

In  his  first  message  to  Congress,  Roosevelt 
began  by  discouraging  a  general  revision  of  the 
tariff.  He  said: 

"Nothing  could  be  more  unwise  than  to  dis 
turb  the  business  interests  of  the  country  by 
any  general  tariff  change  at  this  time." 

But  the  prices  were  going  higher  and  higher 
and  the  people  continued  to  clamor  for  relief. 
It  was  during  this  period  that  the  strife  was  so 
great  between  the  trusts  holding  on  to  the  high 
tariff  and  the  people  demanding  tariff  reduc 
tion,  that  the  term  "standpatter"  was  coined  to 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  711 

describe  those  who  would  not  yield  to  the  demand 
for  tariff  revision  downward.  And  Roosevelt, 
like  Cannon  in  the  House  of  Representatives 
and  Aldrich  in  the  Senate,  stood  pat  against  the 
public  demand. 

He  admonished  the  public  of  the  dangers 
of  tariff  revision,  and  defended  the  standpat 
policy  of  Congress,  in  an  address  at  Minneapolis, 
Minn.,  April  7,  1903,  saying: 

:<The  tariff  affects  trusts  only  as  it  affects  all 
other  interests.  It  makes  all  these  interests, 
large  or  small,  profitable;  and  its  benefits  can 
be  taken  from  the  large  only  under  the  penalty 
of  taking  them  from  the  small  also." 

It  is  true  that  legislation  upon  the  tariff  or  any 
other  subject  must  come  first  from  Congress 
before  the  President  is  required  to  approve  or 
veto  a  measure.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the 
Constitution  authorizes  the  President  to  recom 
mend  legislation  to  Congress.  He  may  also 
call  an  extra  session  for  the  consideration  of 
any  legislation  important  enough  to  warrant  it. 
In  all  the  world  there  is  no  position  of  power 
comparable  to  that  of  the  exalted  office  of  Presi- 


712  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

dent  of  the  United  States,  and  a  message  from 
him,  setting  forth  the  reasons  why  the  public 
interest  requires  legislation  upon  any  subjects 
for  which  there  is  pressing  need,  if  ignored  by 
Congress,  at  once  puts  that  body  upon  the  de 
fensive  before  the  people.  Did  President  Roose 
velt  in  all  the  years  of  his  administration,  when 
these  tariff  and  trust  made  prices  were  wrong 
fully  taking  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  from 
the  consumers,  send  a  ringing  message  to  Con 
gress  recommending  tariff  revision  downward? 
Did  he  issue  a  proclamation  calling  an  extra 
session  for  tariff  revision,  thereby  putting  the 
subject  up  to  Congress  in  a  way  to  compel  ac 
tion?  He  did  neither. 

He  knew,  as  all  men  knew,  that  the  combina 
tions  between  manufacturers  for  the  control  of 
prices,  made  tariff  revision  imperative.  Further 
more,  he  well  understood  that  the  Dingley  rates 
when  enacted  were  so  high  as  to  be  practically 
prohibitory  on  nearly  all  of  the  necessaries  of 
life;  that  since  the  enactment  of  the  Dingley 
law,  through  invention,  the  use  of  electricity 
and  the  adoption  of  modern  methods,  the  cost  of 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  713 

producing  the  manufactured  products  had  been  \ 
revolutionized;   that  the  cost  to  the  consumer  j 
could  have  been  enormously  reduced,  still  leav- 
ing  the  manufacturer  a  larger  profit  than  for 
merly,  and  for  that  reason  alone  duties  should 
have  been  correspondingly  lowered. 

He  could  not  altogether  ignore  the  subject. 
It  was  too  pressing  for  that.  But  in  his  mes 
sages  he  was  most  guarded  in  his  occasional 
brief  references  to  the  tariff,  and  you  will  search 
the  record  in  vain  for  any  clear,  strong  declara 
tion  favoring  a  prompt  tariff  revision  to  lift 
the  unjust  burdens  from  the  people.  He  gave 
Cannon  and  Aldrich  the  very  support  they 
needed  to  maintain  their  standpat  position,  and 
touched  the  subject  now  and  then  with  a  deft 
ness  that  enabled  him  to  escape,  for  the  time, 
being  classed  as  a  standpatter  himself. 

That  he  not  only  was  a  standpatter,  backing 
and  cooperating  with  standpat  leaders  in  legis 
lation,  but  gave  the  great  weight  of  presidential 
influence  to  perpetuate  their  reactionary  rule, 
as  late  as  the  middle  of  his  second  term,  is 
proven  out  of  his  own  mouth. 


714  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

In  1906,  when  Cannon  was  at  the  height  of  his 
domination  of  legislation  in  the  House  of  Rep 
resentatives,  appointing  all  the  committees, 
controlling  with  iron  hand  all  the  proceedings, 
blocking  tariff  legislation,  juggling  with  labor 
legislation  and  with  the  bill  for  the  publicity 
of  campaign  expenses,  palming  off  on  the  public 
the  Hepburn  Railway  Rate  Bill,  with  its  bushel 
of  chaff  and  only  a  grain  or  two  of  wheat,  Roose 
velt  on  the  eighteenth  day  of  August,  1906,  wrote 
from  Oyster  Bay  to  Honorable  James  E.  Watson, 
Member  of  Congress  —  the  same  Watson  who 
was  floor  manager  for  the  Taft  organization  in 
the  Chicago  convention  of  1912  —  to  be  used 
as  a  campaign  appeal  for  votes,  a  letter  from 
which  I  quote  the  following: 

"With  Mr.  Cannon  as  Speaker,  the  House  has 
accomplished  a  literally  phenomenal  amount  of 
work.  It  has  shown  a  courage,  good  sense,  and 
patriotism,  such  that  it  would  be  a  real  and 
serious  misfortune  for  the  country  to  fail  to 
recognize.  To  change  the  leadership  and  or 
ganization  of  the  House  at  this  time  means  to 
bring  confusion  upon  those  who  have  been  suc 
cessfully  engaged  in  the  steady  working  out  of  a 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  715 

great  and  comprehensive  scheme  for  the  better 
ment  of  social,  industrial,  and  civic  conditions. 
Such  a  change  would  substitute  a  purposeless 
and  violent  and  hurtful  oscillation  between  the 
positions  of  the  extreme  radical  and  the  extreme 
reactionary,  for  the  present  orderly  progress 
along  the  lines  of  a  carefully  thought  out  policy. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  cour 
age  of  Congress  within  the  last  few  years,  and 
the  hearty  agreement  between  the  executive  and 
legislative  departments  of  the  nation,  in  con 
ducting  the  needed  action  each  within  its  own 
sphere,'  have  resulted  with  the  nation  for  the 
first  time  definitely  entering  upon  the  career  of 
proper  performance  of  duty  in  these  matters." 

Finally,  as  he  drew  on  toward  the  close  of 
his  second  term,  the  cumulative  effect  of  years  of 
outcry  for  a  reduction  of  tariff  duties  had  brought 
about  a  situation  so  tense  and  critical  that  Roose 
velt  felt  compelled  to  deal  more  at  length  with  the 
subject,  and  to  indicate  that  the  pub  lie  might  hope 
for  tariff  revision  in  the  course  of  time.  In  his 
message  of  December  2,  1907,  he  said: 

"It  is  probably  well  that  every  dozen  years 
or  so  the  tariff  laws  should  be  carefully  scru 
tinized,  so  as  to  see  that  no  excessive  or  improper 
benefits  are  conferred  thereby." 


716  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

But  however  much  it  might  cost  the  consumer 
every  day,  Roosevelt  did  not  propose  to  disturb 
his  pleasant  relations  with  the  big  manufactur 
ing  trusts.  So  he  made  it  very  plain  that  Con 
gress  ought  not  to  undertake  tariff  revision  under 
his  administration  —  saying  that  it  was  a  bad 
time  to  revise  the  tariff  on  the  eve  of  a  presi 
dential  election.  He  had  skilfully  "staved  it 
off"  through  all  of  the  years  since  he  became 
President,  and  he  now  had  a  "good  excuse"  to 
offer  for  its  further  postponement  for  the  re 
maining  thirteen  months  of  his  term.  To  this 
end,  he  added: 

"The  subject  cannot  with  wisdom  be  dealt 
with  in  the  year  preceding  a  presidential  elec 
tion,  because  as  a  matter  of  fact  experience  has 
conclusively  shown  that  at  such  a  time  it  is 
impossible  to  get  men  to  treat  it  from  the  stand 
point  of  the  public  good.  In  my  judgment  the 
wise  time  to  deal  with  the  matter  is  immediately 
after  such  election." 

And  then,  when  the  session  of  1907  and  '08 
was  so  far  advanced  that  no  tariff  revision  could 
possibly  be  undertaken,  he  transmitted  a  special 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  717 

message  to  Congress  on  the  tariff,  in  which  he 
said: 

"The  time  has  come  when  we  should  prepare 
for  a  revision  of  the  tariff." 

The  time  had  not  come  to  revise,  but  only  to 
"prepare"  to  revise  the  tariff. 

It  was  inevitable  that  tariff  revision  involving 
tariff  reductions  such  as  were  vital,  especially 
if  it  was  to  result  in  any  relief  to  the  consumer, 
would  incur  the  hostility  of  the  powerful  trusts 
and  combinations.  And  so,  as  in  all  the  great 
emergencies  in  Roosevelt's  public  life,  we  find 
him  carefully  steering  the  middle  course.  He 
was  determined  not  to  incur  the  animosity  of 
the  standpatters  by  urging  thorough  tariff  re 
vision;  yet  he  said  just  enough  in  its  favor  at 
just  the  right  time  to  leave  with  the  people  the 
impression  that  he  had  not  wholly  ignored  their 
interests. 

Nothing  better  illustrates  the  Roosevelt 
method  of  dealing  with  public  questions  than 
his  course  upon  the  tariff  while  he  was  President. 

No  review  of  Roosevelt's  tariff  record  is  com- 


718  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

plete  which  does  not  include  his  editorial  com 
ment  on  the  Payne-Aldrich  Law  in  the  Outlook 
of  September  17,  1910,  quoted  in  an  earlier 
chapter,  in  which  he  said: 

"I  think  that  the  present  tariff  is  better  than 
the  last,  and  considerably  better  than  the  one 
before  the  last." 

To  which  must  be  added  his  declaration  in 
the  New  York  State  platform  in  1910  which 
strongly  approved  the  Payne-Aldrich  law,  and 
"enthusiastically  endorsed  the  progressive  and 
statesmanlike  leadership  of  William  Howard 
Taft." 

One  could  not  consider  Roosevelt  as  the 
proposed  leader  of  the  Progressive  Republican 
cause  without  remembering  his  relations  with 
Morgan,  Gary,  Frick,  Perkins,  Harriman,  Hill, 
Gould,  Morton  and  others  —  the  very  men  who 
were  building  up  the  greatest  railroad  and  trust 
combinations  of  the  country.  In  such  a  crisis, 
men  calling  themselves  Progressives  might  ig 
nore  the  damaging  evidence  of  this  connection, 
but  I  could  not  contemplate  Roosevelt  as  the 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  719 

Progressive  Republican  standard  bearer  in  the 
face  of  these  disclosures.  Who  could  doubt  the 
meaning  of  this  letter  to  E.  H.  Harrriman? 

"WHITE  HOUSE, 

"WASHINGTON,  October  14,  1904. 
"My  DEAR  MR.  HARRIMAN: 

"A  suggestion  has  come  to  me  in  a  roundabout 
way  that  you  do  not  think  it  wise  to  come  to  see 
me  in  these  closing  days  of  the  campaign,  but 
that  you  are  reluctant  to  refuse,  inasmuch  as  I 
have  asked  you. 

"Now,  my  dear  sir,  you  and  I  are  practical 
men  and  you  are  on  the  ground  and  know  con 
ditions  better  than  I  do.  If  you  think  there  is 
any  danger  of  your  visit  to  me  causing  trouble, 
or  if  you  think  there  is  nothing  special  I  should 
be  informed  about,  or  no  matter  in  which  I 
could  give  any  aid,  why,  of  course,  give  up  the 
visit  for  the  time  being;  and  then,  a  few  weeks 
hence,  before  I  write  my  message,  I  shall  get 
you  to  come  down  to  discuss  certain  government 
matters  not  connected  with  the  campaign. 

"With  great  regard,  sincerely  yours, 

"THEODORE  ROOSEVELT." 

Roosevelt  made  the  claim  that  this  letter  was 
written  not  with  a  view  of  soliciting  Harriman's 
aid  for  himself,  but  to  secure  Harriman's  finan- 


720  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

cial  assistance  to  save  the  New  York  Republican 
state  ticket  in  the  election  of  1904.  On  that 
point  he  is  overwhelmed  by  the  letter  which  Har- 
riman  wrote  on  January  2,  1906,  to  Mr.  Sidney 
Webster  of  New  York,  more  than  a  year  after 
ward. 

From  this  letter  it  appears  that  the  New  York 
State  ticket  was  not  only  in  danger,  but  that  the 
state  was  "doubtful  as  to  Roosevelt  himself"; 
that  Roosevelt  invited  Harriman  to  come  to 
Washington  "to  confer  on  the  political  condi 
tions  in  New  York  State";  that  Roosevelt  told 
Harriman  that  "the  campaign  could  not  be  suc 
cessfully  carried  on  without  sufficient  money," 
and  asked  him  if  he  "would  help  them  raise  the 
necessary  funds,  as  the  National  Committee 
under  the  control  of  Chairman  Cortelyou  had 
utterly  failed  of  obtaining  them,  and  there  was  a 
large  amount  due  from  them  (the  National 
Committee)  to  the  New  York  State  committee." 
Harriman  explained  to  Roosevelt  that  the  dif 
ficulty  in  New  York  was  mainly  "caused  by  the 
up-state  leaders  being  unwilling  to  support 
Depew  for  re-election  to  the  United  States 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  721 

Senate;  that  if  he  (Depew)  could  be  taken  care 
of  in  some  other  way,  matters  could  be  adjusted, 
and  the  different  contending  elements  in  the 
party  brought  into  close  alliance  again."  Roose 
velt  and  Harriman  talked  over  what  could  be 
done  for  Depew,  and  finally  Roosevelt  agreed 
that  "if  found  necessary"  he  "would  appoint 
him  Ambassador  to  Paris." 

Harriman  says  in  his  letter  to  Webster: 

"With  full  belief  that  he,  the  President,  would 
keep  this  agreement,  I  came  back  to  New  York, 
sent  for  Treasurer  Bliss  (of  the  National  Com 
mittee)  who  told  me  I  was  their  last  hope  and 
that  they  had  exhausted  every  other  resource. 
In  his  presence  I  called  up  an  intimate  friend  of 
Senator  Depew,  told  him  that  it  was  necessary 
in  order  to  carry  New  York  State  that  $200,000 
should  be  raised  at  once  and  that  if  he  would 
help,  I  would  subscribe  $50,000.  After  a  few 
words  over  the  telephone,  the  gentleman  said 
he  would  let  me  know,  which  he  did  probably 
in  three  or  four  hours  with  the  result  that  the 
whole  amount,  including  my  subscription  had 
been  raised.  The  checks  were  given  to  Secretary 
Bliss  who  took  them  to  Chairman  Cortelyou. 
If  there  were  any  among  them  of  life  insurance 
companies  or  any  other  like  organizations,  of 
course  Cortelyou  must  have  informed  the  Presi- 


AS  A  CANDIDATE 

dent.  .  :. ;  ;  This  amount  enabled  the  New 
York  State  committee  to  continue  to  work  with 
the  result  that  at  least  50,000  votes  were  turned 
in  the  city  of  New  York  alone,  making  a  differ 
ence  of  100,000  votes  in  the  general  result. 

"Sometime  in  November  1904,  on  my  way 
from  Virginia  to  New  York,  I  stopped  and  had 
a  short  talk  with  the  President.  He  then  told 
me  that  he  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  appoint 
Depew  as  Ambassador  to  Paris,  as  agreed,  in 
fact  favored  him  for  the  Senate.  .  .  ." 

It  appears  from  Harriman's  letter  that  Roose 
velt  preferred  to  have  Depew  in  the  United 
States  Senate  rather  than  appoint  him  as  Am 
bassador  to  France.  Depew  wras  at  that  time  a 
director  in  seventy-four  of  the  combinations 
controlling  the  business  of  the  country.  For 
forty  years  he  had  been  the  representative  of 
special  interests.  He  was  approaching  the  close 
of  his  first  term  in  the  Senate.  During  that 
time  the  record  of  his  votes  shows  him  to  be 
arrayed  on  every  question  in  favor  of  special 
privilege  as  against  the  public  interest.  And  in 
the  face  of  this  record,  Roosevelt  "favored  him 
for  the  Senate." 

This  correspondence  placed  Roosevelt  in  the 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  723 

position  of  a  solicitor  of  funds  from  Harriman 
and  others,  representing  powerful  interests, 
which  became  so  dominant  during  Roosevelt's 
administration,  and  it  is  clear  that  he  sought 
these  funds,  not  only  in  aid  of  the  state  ticket  but 
because,  as  Harriman  says,  the  state  "was 
doubtful  as  to  Roosevelt  himself";  and  besides 
the  National  Committee  was  in  debt  to  the  New 
York  State  Central  Committee.  Harriman 
raised  this  large  fund  of  $200,000,  contributing 
besides  $50,000  himself. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Roosevelt's  letter  of 
October  14th  to  Harriman  is  very  significant  in 
many  ways.  He  says:  "If  you  think  there  is 
any  danger  of  your  visit  to  me  causing  trouble, 
or  if  you  think  there  is  nothing  special  I  should 
be  informed  about,  or  no  matter  in  which  I  could 
give  any  aid,  why,  of  course,  give  up  the  visit 
for  the  time  being."  What  was  there  between 
these  two  men  that  led  Candidate  Roosevelt  to 
think  there  might  be  something  "  special/'  which 
Harriman  should  inform  him  about?  What 
"matter"  was  there  in  which  he  (Roosevelt) 
might  "give  any  aid"?  And  why  did  he  want 


724  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

to  see  "a  few  weeks  hence,  before  I  write  my 
message,"  this  great  master  of  the  highways  of 
commerce,  who  was  also  a  potential  force  in  the 
consolidation  of  the  great  banking  interests  for 
the  control  of  money  and  credits  then  under  way, 
and  one  of  the  twenty -three  directors  of  the 
Standard  Oil  bank,  which  through  various  con 
nections  then  represented  more  than  three  hun 
dred  and  fifty  banks,  trust  companies,  railroads, 
and  industrial  corporations  with  an  aggregate 
capitalization  of  more  than  $12,000,000,000? 

In  this  connection  I  remembered  that  two 
important  suits  brought  by  the  Government 
against  the  Central  Pacific  Railroad  Company 
et  al.,  and  the  Southern  Pacific  Railroad  Com 
pany,  et  al.,  and  pending  when  Harriman  made 
his  $250,000  contribution  were  thereafter  dis 
missed  in  the  early  part  of  the  year  1905  fol 
lowing  Roosevelt's  election.  Joseph  H.  Call 
of  California  was  the  special  counsel  employed 
to  prosecute  these  cases.  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
Attorney-General  ordered  them  dismissed,  not 
through  Mr.  Call,  the  special  counsel,  or  upon 
his  advice.  Roosevelt's  Attorney-General  did 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  725 

not  appoint  Call  as  special  counsel  to  commence 
the  suit  to  dissolve  the  so-called  Harriman  mer 
ger  of  these  two  and  other  lines.  This  suit  was 
based  upon  an  investigation  and  report  of  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  No.  943  en 
titled,  "In  the  Matter  of  Consolidations  and 
Combinations  of  Carriers,"  etc.  In  this  report 
the  Commission  states  that  these  two  lines,  the 
Central  Pacific  Railroad  and  the  Southern  Pacific 
Railroad,  were  competing  parallel  lines  across 
the  continent,  and  had  been  consolidated  to 
gether  and  operated  through  a  holding  com 
pany  called  the  Southern  Pacific  Company. 
This  suit  was  decided  against  the  Government 
by  the  Judges  of  the  United  States  Circuit 
Court,  Eighth  Circuit,  June  25,  1911.  An  in 
spection  of  this  reported  case  will  show  that 
for  some  mysterious  reason  the  Government 
did  not  join  as  defendants  these  two  wrong 
doers  —  the  Southern  Pacific  Railroad  Company 
and  the  Central  Pacific  Railroad  Company. 
And  moreover,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  bill 
did  not  charge  or  allege  that  a  combination  to 
monopolize  commerce  or  restrain  trade  had  been 


726  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

formed  between  those  two  great  competing  lines; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  the  bill  admitted  that 
these  two  lines  had  been  combined  in  the 
Southern  Pacific  Company,  the  holding  corpo 
ration,  and  started  out  with  that  fact.  The 
result  was  that  no  decree  could  be  entered  dis 
solving  the  combination,  as  it  was  not  com 
plained  of,  and  because  the  parties  were  not 
before  the  court  a  judgment  was  entered  against 
the  Government.  That  case  is  now  pending 
upon  appeal  in  the  United  States  Supreme  Court; 
but  whatever  the  outcome,  it  cannot  result  in 
separating  these  two  great  lines,  because  that 
relief  is  not  sought  by  the  bill. 

In  this  suit  brought  by  the  Government,  under 
the  Roosevelt  administration,  against  Harriman 
lines,  why  did  his  Attorney-General  fail  to  make 
the  Southern  Pacific  Railroad  Company  and  the 
Central  Pacific  Railroad  Company  parties  de 
fendant  in  that  action?  Without  charging  that 
the  contributions  made  and  secured  by  Mr.  Har 
riman,  amounting  to  $250,000,  were  for  the  ex 
press  purpose  of  securing  a  dismissal  of  the  pend 
ing  suits  against  the  Southern  Pacific  and  the 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  727 

entering  of  what  would  appear  to  be  a  collusive 
judgment  against  the  Government  in  favor  of  the 
combination,  it  would  seem  that  Roosevelt  or 
some  one  for  him  ought  to  explain  this  whole 
matter  in  connection  with  the  contributions. 

The  proceedings  in  this  case  are  strikingly 
analogous  to  another  brought  by  President 
Roosevelt's  direction  on  the  twenty-eighth  of 
May,  1908,  entitled,  "The  United  States  of 
America,  Complainant,  vs.  New  York,  New 
Haven  &  Hartford  Railroad  Company,  Boston 
&  Maine  Railroad  Company,  and  the  Providence 
Securities  Company,  Defendants." 

The  petition  in  this  case  was  filed  in  the  Cir 
cuit  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  District 
of  Massachusetts,  and  alleged  an  unlawful  com 
bination  in  restraint  of  trade,  in  violation  of  the 
Sherman  Anti -Trust  Law.  This  case  is  famil 
iarly  known  as  the  New  Haven  Merger  case. 
The  basis  of  the  Government's  action  was  the 
acquisition  by  the  New  Haven,  of  the  Boston  & 
Maine  steam  railroad,  and  various  New  Eng 
land  trolley  lines  engaged  for  the  most  part  in 
conducting  intra-state  transportation,  but  which 


728  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

were  so  connected  with  one  another  as  to  consti 
tute  interstate  lines,  engaged  in  interstate  trade 
or  commerce. 

The  weakness  of  the  Government's  case  was 
the  difficulty  which  it  would  encounter  in  prov 
ing  that  the  trolley  lines  were  engaged  in  inter 
state  trade  to  such  an  extent  as  to  constitute 
lines  in  competition  with  the  New  Haven  in 
interstate  traffic.  Not  only  had  the  New 
Haven  acquired  the  railroad  and  trolley  lines 
described  in  the  petition,  but  practically  every 
steamship  line  engaged  in  interstate  commerce, 
competing  against  the  New  Haven's  combined 
steam  and  trolley  lines,  between  New  England 
and  New  York.  If  the  complaint  had  covered 
the  acquisition  of  the  steamship  lines  by  the 
New  Haven  Company,  through  which  it  sup 
pressed  the  water  competition  with  its  railroad 
lines,  the  Government's  case  would  have  been 
absolutely  perfect. 

Before  this  action  was  begun  all  New  England 
was  in  ferment  over  the  consolidation,  and 
United  States  District  Attorney  French  for  the 
District  of  Massachusetts,  assisted  by  Louis  D. 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  729 

Brandeis,  conducted  an  investigation  which, 
after  conferences  between  the  District  Attorney, 
Mr.  Brandeis,  President  Roosevelt,  and  the 
Department  of  Justice,  resulted  in  the  com 
mencement  of  the  action. 

It  was  made  plain  to  the  President  and  his 
Attorney-General  that  the  acquisition  of  the 
steamship  lines  by  the  New  Haven  constituted 
a  substantial  foundation  for  the  action;  that 
while  the  action  might  be  maintained,  if  the 
petition  charged  only  the  combination  of  the 
railroad  and  trolley  lines,  the  Government  could 
prove  a  perfectly  plain  violation  of  the  Anti- 
Trust  Law  if  the  proper  allegations  were  incor 
porated  in  the  bill  covering  the  merger  of  the 
steamship  lines  as  well. 

Before  the  petition  was  signed  and  filed, 
Morgan's  representative,  President  Mellen  of 
the  New  Haven,  who  brought  about  the  whole 
combination,  called  upon  President  Roosevelt, 
and  persuaded  him  to  have  omitted  from  the  bill 
of  complaint  all  reference  to  the  acquisition  of 
the  steamship  lines. 

Roosevelt's  compliance  with  Mellen's  request 


730  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

in  this  regard  greatly  weakened  the  case,  mak 
ing  it  much  easier  for  Attorney-General  Wicker- 
sham  to  dismiss  the  Government's  action,  which 
he  did  within  three  months  after  Roosevelt 
retired,  leaving  all  New  England  at  the  mercy 
of  this  monster  transportation  monopoly.  This 
juggling  with  the  Sherman  Act  resulted  in  traffic 
conditions  so  desperately  bad  that  the  Inter 
state  Commerce  Commission  on  its  own  motion 
is,  at  the  time  of  this  writing,  conducting  an 
investigation  which  discloses  an  intolerable  situ 
ation. 

While  this  obliging  concession  made  by  Roose 
velt  to  Morgan's  man  Mellen  took  away  the 
strongest  prop  sustaining  the  Government's 
case,  nevertheless  if  Attorney-General  Wicker- 
sham,  in  the  performance  of  his  plain  duty,  had 
amended  the  Government's  petition  by  proper 
allegations  setting  out  the  facts  regarding  the 
steamship  lines,  and  zealously  prosecuted  in 
stead  of  dismissing  the  merger  case,  he  could 
have  fully  protected  the  public  interest.  But 
the  fact  remains  that  President  Roosevelt, 
through  his  concessions  to  President  Mellen, 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  731 

opened  the  way  for  Wickersham  to  permit  the 
New  Haven  merger  to  escape  the  penalties  of 
the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law. 

The  Northern  Securities  case  against  the 
Morgan-Hill  railroad  combination,  seems  to 
have  pointed  the  way.  This  case  was  brought 
under  the  Sherman  Law,  by  Roosevelt's  orders 
in  1902.  As  his  record  shows,  he  was  not 
especially  fond  of  this  law,  and  later  openly 
denounced  it,  saying  its  "enforcement  would 
destroy  the  business  of  the  country."  The  pub 
lic  was  demanding  the  prosecution  of  the  rail 
road  and  other  combinations,  and  some  show  of 
compliance  with  the  public  demand  must  be 
made! 

In  the  Northern  Securities  case  the  Govern 
ment  "won,"  but  some  way,  the  victory  seemed 
to  be  barren  of  results.  The  railroad  combina 
tion  survived.  The  poor  old  Sherman  Law  was 
of  course  "responsible."  But  let  us  see  why: 
In  this  case  it  was  charged  that  the  Northern 
Pacific  and  Great  Northern  railroads,  two 
parallel  continental  lines,  had  combined  with 
the  Chicago,  Burlington  and  Quincy  Railroad 


732  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

to  destroy  competition  and  to  create  a  monopoly 
in  transportation.  The  Government's  attorneys 
in  preparing  the  decree  strangely  omitted  to 
provide  for  the  dissolution  of  the  combination 
and  conspiracy  between  the  competing  and 
parallel  lines;  and  likewise  omitted  from  the 
decree  the  provision  that  those  competing  lines 
be  required  thereafter  to  operate  indepen 
dently  each  through  its  own  board  of  directors 
and  officers. 

The  effect  of  this  abortive  decree  was  to  leave 
the  combination  in  full  force  and  operation 
through  a  holding  company  or  trust  agreement. 
This  defeated  the  very  purpose  for  which  the 
action  was  brought  and  left  the  Government 
nothing.  Furthermore,  the  decision  entered 
in  that  case  operated  to  increase  the  capital 
stock  of  the  monopoly  one  hundred  million 
dollars  as  a  burden  upon  transporation.  That 
monopoly  still  exists,  with  Roosevelt's  friend 
Perkins  as  one  of  the  directors. 

In  an  earlier  chapter  I  have  suggested  the 
opposition  encountered  throughout  my  admin 
istration  as  governor,  to  the  enactment  of  the 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  733 

direct  primary,  the  railroad,  and  all  other  Pro 
gressive  legislation.  In  considering  Roosevelt 
as  the  candidate,  and  a  suitable  representative 
of  Progressive  principles,  I  could  not  fail  to 
remember  how  he  had  thrown  the  weight  of 
presidential  influence  on  the  side  of  that  opposi 
tion  throughout  our  long  struggle  in  Wisconsin. 
And  it  was  long  and  bitter.  One  little  word  of 
encouragement,  publicly  spoken  by  President 
Roosevelt,  one  act  of  friendly  recognition,  how 
ever  slight,  would  have  been  as  new  wine  to  our 
battered  forces  fighting  in  the  gray  dawn  of  this 
Progressive  movement. 

But  instead,  President  Roosevelt  was  then  a 
scoffer,  ever  ready  with  expressions  of  contempt 
and  warning,  to  be  borne  back  to  Wisconsin 
and  planted  where  they  would  be  most  hurtful. 
And  then  came  the  full  weight  of  the  admin 
istration's  appointing  power,  as  a  backing  to 
the  Standpat-Stalwart  reactionary  enemy  we 
were  fighting,  which  Roosevelt  reinforced  with 
an  army  of  federal  officeholders.  The  repre 
sentatives  of  the  railroads  and  combined 
corporations  were  very  strong,  but  the  sup- 


734  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

port  of  the  Roosevelt  administration,  meant 
many  more  defeats  for  us  and  added  many 
a  heart-breaking  year  to  our  long  continued 
contest. 

Henry  C.  Payne  was  to  Wisconsin  what  Mark 
Hanna  —  with  whom  he  was  intimately  asso 
ciated —  was  to  the  country.  Mark  Hanna, 
representing  Big  Business,  wanted  Payne  in 
McKinley's  cabinet.  I  protested.  McKinley 
refused,  saying  as  stated  in  an  earlier  chapter, 
that  he  would  not  appoint  a  man  in  his  cabinet 
who  was  known  to  be  a  lobbyist.  But  imme 
diately  after  MX<:  ,  v'«- death,  Roosevelt  ap 
pointed  Payne  Postmaster-General,  placing 
this  adroit  manipulator  at  the  head  of  a 
force  of  four  thousand  postmasters  who 
would  take  his  orders  and  do  his  bidding  in 
the  Wisconsin  fight.  In  the  appointment  of 
Payne,  Roosevelt  dealt  the  Progressive  cause  a 
body  blow. 

Joseph  W.  Babcock,  for  many  years  a  member 
of  Congress  from  the  Third  Wisconsin  Dis 
trict,  was  Chairman  of  the  Congressional 
Campaign  Committee.  It  was  his  office  to 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  735 

"fry  the  fat"  out  of  the  manufacturers,  brew 
ers,  railroads,  and  other  special  interests, 
with  which  to  aid  in  carrying  on  the  cam 
paigns,  and  thereafter,  with  Cannon  and  twro 
or  three  other  members  of  the  inner  circle, 
it  was  Babcock's  business  to  see  to  it  that 
no  legislation  detrimental  to  special  inter 
ests  should  be  permitted  to  go  through  the 
House. 

Babcock's  district  was  one  of  the  most 
progressive  in  Wisconsin.  It  had  a  normal 
majority  of  eight  to  ten  thousand.  The  Pro 
gressives  in  his  district,  *T  1  t  to  overthrow 
him.  But  with  money  and  offices,  the  one 
supplied  by  the  business  interests  which  he 
served,  and  the  other  by  the  Roosevelt  ad 
ministration,  with  which  he  was  a  favorite, 
he  managed  to  hold  fast  to  the  control  of 
his  district.  Babcock  was  not  only  obnox 
ious  to  the  Progressive  Republicans  of  his 
district,  but  to  those  of  the  entire  state  as 
well.  He  took  charge  of  the  Standpat  cam 
paign  against  my  nomination  in  1904.  De 
feated  by  the  Progressive  Republicans  in  that 


736  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

campaign,  Babcock  was  one  of  the  Standpat 
leaders  who  bolted,  organized  a  rump  con 
vention,  placed  a  reactionary  state  ticket 
in  the  field,  and  had  himself,  Spooner, 
and  two  other  reactionaries  "elected"  as 
delegates  to  the  Republican  National  Con 
vention,  which  nominated  Roosevelt  in  1904. 
These  "delegates"  contested  the  right  of  the 
four  regularly  elected  delegates-at-large  —  of 
which  I  was  one  —  to  seats  in  that  conven 
tion;  and  without  any  color  of  right  we  were 
thrown  out  and  they  were  seated  by  the  Na 
tional  Committee.  The  Supreme  Court  of  Wis 
consin  subsequently  decided  that  our  convention 
was  the  regular  Republican  Convention. 

Babcock's  record  as  a  Standpat  corporation- 
serving  Congressman  was  notorious.  He  was 
opposed  to  everything  which  the  Progressive 
Republican  administration  in  Wisconsin  repre 
sented,  and  he  fought  my  renomination  and  that 
of  every  member  of  our  Progressive  legislative 
ticket  in  1902.  Following  this  campaign  Roose 
velt  commended  Babcock's  campaign  methods 
and  expressed  gratification  that  they  had  been 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  737 

able  to  work  so  harmoniously,  in  the  following 
personal  letter: 

"WHITE  HOUSE,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

"November  6,  1902. 
"Personal. 
"My  DEAR  BABCOCK: 

"I  feel  that  you  and  your  colleagues,  Mr. 
Overstreet,  Mr.  Hull  (both  Standpatters),  and 
the  others,  are  entitled  to  the  hearty  thanks  of 
every  good  Republican.  I  wish  to  express  my 
appreciation  of  all  that  you  have  done,  my  de 
light  at  the  way  we  have  been  able  to  work  to 
gether,  and  my  astonishment  at  the  accuracy  of 
your  forecasts.  ,, 

"Faithfully  yours, 

"THEODORE  ROOSEVELT." 

In  1904  the  Progressive  Republicans  of  Bab- 
cock's  district  vigorously  contested  his  renom- 
ination,  but  were  unsuccessful.  Babcock  in 
this  campaign  for  renomination  made  effective 
use  of  this  letter,  for  which  he  must  have  had 
Roosevelt's  special  permission,  as  it  was  a  per 
sonal  letter  from  the  President,  and  would  not 
otherwise  have  been  given  publicity.  It  was 
printed  in  Wisconsin  papers  under  the  heading 
"Endorsed  by  Roosevelt."  He  was  nominated, 


738  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

and  elected  by  the  scant  majority  of  326  in  a 
district  which  he  had  carried  two  years  before 
by  over  eight  thousand.  TWTO  years  later  Roose 
velt's  "influence"  did  not  save  him. 

The  foregoing  is  given  as  first  hand  evidence 
that  Babcock  was  the  kind  of  Congressman  that 
Roosevelt  wanted  in  control  of  legislation  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  while  he  was  President. 

In  1904  Roosevelt  wrote  a  characteristic  letter 
to  Chairman  Cortelyou  of  the  Republican  Na 
tional  Committee,  which  he  has  since  quoted  as 
evidence  that  he  "took  sides  "  with  the  Wisconsin 
Progressives  in  that  campaign.  The  letter  in 
part  ran  as  follows: 

"I  think  Babcock  and  his  people  should  be 
told  that,  especially  in  view  of  the  decision  of 
the  Supreme  Court,  there  must  not  be  any  kind 
of  favoritism  shown  by  us  toward  the  'Stal 
warts.'  Under  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  any  weakening  of  the  La  Follette  ticket 
is  a  weakening  of  the  national  ticket." 

Nineteen  hundred  and  four  was  a  presidential 
year,  and  Roosevelt  was  a  candidate  himself. 
"Any  weakening  of  the  La  Follette  ticket  is  a 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  739 

weakening  of  the  national  ticket,"  he  warns 
Cortelyou.  This  letter  was  in  the  nature  of  a 
reversal  of  orders  to  meet  the  changed  condi 
tions.  We  were  no  longer  in  the  minority, 
fighting  the  fight  for  principle;  we  were  in  the 
majority,  and  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
had  established  our  status. 

Speaker  Cannon  agreed  entirely  with  Roose 
velt's  estimate  of  Babcock's  worth.  In  a  letter 
written  in  1903  to  Calvert  Spensley,  Mineral 
Point,  Wis.,  and  published  in  connection  with 
Roosevelt's  as  above  quoted,  Cannon  gives  it 
as  his  judgment  that  "his  (Babcock's)  continu 
ance  in  public  life  is  a  matter  of  concern,  not 
only  to  his  own  district  and  state,  but  to  the 
whole  country."  To  this  he  adds:  ;<You  will 
notice  from  the  organization  of  the  House,  the 
responsibility  having  been  placed  upon  myself 
to  make  the  committees,  that  Mr.  Babcock  suc 
ceeds  himself  as  a  member  of  the  Committee  on 
Ways  and  Means  and  as  Chairman  of  the  Com 
mittee  on  the  District  of  Columbia." 

This  surely  was  a  tribute  to  Babcock's  "reli 
ability"! 


740  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

As  further  evidence  of  Roosevelt's  aggres 
sive  hostility  to  the  Progressive  cause  in  Wis 
consin,  let  the  record  tell  the  story :  The  holder 
of  every  important  federal  office  in  the  state  was 
a  persistent  lobbyist  in  close  attendance  upon 
the  legislature,  session  after  session,  using  the 
power  and  influence  of  his  position  under  Roose 
velt  to  defeat  every  Progressive  measure.  They 
were  bitter  in  their  opposition  to  direct  pri 
maries,  to  the  regulation  of  railway  rates  and 
services,  to  railway  taxation,  to  the  reduction  of 
passenger  rates,  to  the  prohibition  of  rebating, 
to  a  corrupt  practices  act,  to  pure  food  legis 
lation  —  in  short,  to  the  entire  Progressive 
program.  Members  of  the  legislature  pledged 
to  support  these  measures,  betrayed  their  con 
stituents  and  were  rewarded  with  lucrative 
appointments  by  President  Roosevelt  in  the 
Treasury  Department,  the  Interior  Depart 
ment,  and  the  foreign  service.  Federal  judge- 
ships  were  bestowed  upon  Reactionaries 
and  Standpatters.  Owners  of  newspapers 
supporting  the  Progressive  state  adminis 
tration  faced  about,  became  hostile,  and 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  741 

promptly  received  important  appointments 
abroad. 

The  opposition  of  the  Roosevelt  administra 
tion  to  our  Progressive  movement  in  Wisconsin 
was  four  years  old.  We  had  achieved  success 
despite  it,  and  success  can  afford  to  forget. 
I  recalled  it  at  this  time  only  in  reviewing 
Roosevelt's  official  acts  to  determine  the  sound 
ness  and  sincerity  of  his  late  professions  as  a 
Progressive  Republican. 

And  at  a  later  date,  in  1910,  in  my  campaign 
for  reelection  to  the  United  States  Senate  when, 
as  George  W.  Perkins  afterward  admitted  to 
Charles  R.  Crane,  "Wall  Street  was  drained 
dry"  to  secure  my  defeat,  Roosevelt,  to  quote 
horn- The  Public,  "skilfully  managed  to  speak  in 
Wisconsin  just  after  the  primaries  instead  of 
just  before."  It  was  the  day  following  the 
primaries.  I  had  been  nominated  by  more  than 
one  hundred  thousand  majority.  All  the  Pro 
gressives  of  Wisconsin  were  rejoicing,  and  mes 
sages  of  congratulation  were  coming  from  Pro 
gressives  of  every  state.  Roosevelt  spoke  in 
Milwaukee,  and  of  this  speech  The  Public  says 


742  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

further:  "And  when  he  did  speak  in  Wisconsin 
after  La  Follette  carried  the  primaries,  why  was 
he  so  eloquently  silent  about  La  Follette?" 

Furthermore,  it  is  a  fact  in  political  history 
that  Progressive  success  in  every  Republican 
\J  state  was  secured  despite  the  opposition  of  the 
Roosevelt  administration,  during  the  seven 
years  that  he  was  President.  And  during  that 
same  period,  Progressive  Republican  Senators 
and  Progressive  Republican  members  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  as  candidates  to 
succeed  Standpatters,  fought  their  way  to  the 
American  Congress  against  the  active  influence 
of  Roosevelt,  put  forth  to  retain  reactionaries  in 
the  public  service,  sometimes  by  verbal  message, 
sometimes  by  open  letter. 

I  recite  these  facts  only  "as  a  part  of  the  history 
of  the  Progressive  struggle,  and  the  real  attitude 
of  Roosevelt  to  it,  and  this  too,  but  a  few  years 
ago.  Like  the  flash  of  a  searchlight,  they 
reveal  the  true  relation  of  his  administration 
to  the  most  hardened  types  of  interest-serving 
reactionaries.  Also  they  help  us  to  understand 
why,  with  outward  manifestations  of  Progres- 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  743 

sivism,  he  did  so  little  for  the  Progressive  move 
ment  nationally,  and  so  much  directly  and  so 
much  more  indirectly  for  the  great  combinations 
of  capital  during  the  years  that  he  was  President. 

Even  those  who  urged  Roosevelt's  candidacy 
as  the  expedient  thing,  were  forced  to  admit  that 
he  was  not  really  Progressive;  that  he  shifted 
his  ground;  qualified  his  positions;  compro 
mised  important  issues;  that  nobody  knew  from 
his  record  that  he  would  be  found  to-morrow 
where  he  stood  to-day.  But  they  justified  their 
course  by  reasoning  that  the  Progressive  move 
ment  had  become  so  powerful  that,  if  elected, 
public  opinion  would  compel  Roosevelt  to  be 
Progressive. 

My  repeated  experiences  with  him,  while  he 
was  President  had,  from  time  to  time,  been  very 
trying.  Furthermore,  his  determination  to  be 
a  candidate  for  the  presidency  and  to  be  the 
Progressive  Republican  candidate  had  now,  for 
the  first  time,  forced  upon  me  the  necessity  of 
making  a  thorough  study  of  his  record  upon 
the  issues  that  were  undermining  Democracy, 
—  the  issues  which  had  made  the  Progressive 


744  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

movement  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  rep 
resentative  government. 

I  had  many  times  emphasized  the  good  things 
in  Roosevelt's  record.  On  several  occasions, 
when  he  professed  a  determination  to  aid  in 
some  fundamentally  important  Progressive  leg 
islation,  as  for  example,  the  valuation  of  rail 
roads,  I  was  much  impressed,  and  led  to  believe 
that  after  all  he  could  be  relied  on,  and  to  feel 
that  if  this  man  with  his  forcefulness  and  popu 
lar  following  were  once  thoroughly  enlisted,  no 
one  could  be  more  serviceable  to  the  Progressive 
movement.  At  such  times  I  gave  free  expres 
sion  to  my  feeling,  and  then  he  would  disappoint 
me  by  doing  the  expedient  thing,  yielding  the 
principle  or  shifting  completely  to  the  opposition. 

It  was  one  thing,  however,  to  refer  generously 
to  the  best  side  of  Roosevelt's  administration; 
it  was  quite  another  thing  to  consider  Roose 
velt  as  the  Progressive  candidate  for  the  presi 
dency  for  a  third  term,  with  all  that  it  would 
mean  to  the  Progressive  cause  which,  when  once 
committed  to  him,  would  become  responsible 
for,  and  bound  by  everything  he  said  or  did. 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  745 

Into  this  man's  hands  it  was  proposed  to  commit 
the  future  of  a  movement  with  great  national 
promise,  at  a  critical  period  in  its  life  that  would 
-  as  that  leadership  was  loyal  to  principle  or 
served  expediency  —  establish  it  as  a  lasting 
power  for  good,  or  render  it  merely  a  transitory 
and  time-serving  thing  of  the  hour. 

Passing  the  consideration  of  the  sincerity  of 
his  convictions,  upon  his  record  alone  I  could 
not,  in  good  conscience,  accept  him  as  a  Progres 
sive  candidate  for  the  Republican  presidential 
nomination.  His  record  gave  no  assurance  of 
profound  conviction,  or  that  he  was  equipped 
with  patience,  determination,  and  experience  to 
deal  with  great  social  and  economic  problems 
constructively  in  the  public  interest. 

And  lastly,  his  course  in  connection  with  my 
own  candidacy  had  destroyed  my  faith  in  his 
integrity  of  character  in  any  matter  conflicting 
with  his  self-interest. 

It  was  plain  to  be  seen,  when  Roosevelt 
rushed  into  the  contest,  that  he  would  divide 
the  Progressives  and  destroy  all  chance  of  Pro 
gressive  control  of  the  Republican  convention, 


746  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

as  he  finally  did.  But  believing  that  his  control 
of  any  Progressive  movement,  independent  or 
otherwise,  would  be  fatal  to  it,  and  with  supreme 
confidence  that  the  leadership  of  the  Republican 
party  would  ultimately  become  Progressive  as 
the  great  body  of  its  rank  and  file,  I  determined 
to  fight  on  for  the  preservation  of  the  Progres 
sive  movement  within  the  Republican  party. 
The  reasons  for  so  doing  seemed  to  me  to  be 
very  strong. 

What  is  known  as  the  Progressive  movement 
had  originated  within  the  Republican  party,  the 
rank  and  file  of  which  is  not  now  and  never  has 
been  subservient  to  privilege  in  any  form. 

While  special  interests  had  been  increasing 
their  hold  upon  the  administrative  side  of  gov 
ernment  at  Washington,  Progressive  Repub 
licans  in  many  staunch  Republican  states  had 
wrested  the  control  from  these  interests,  and  en 
acted  statutes  restoring  representative  govern 
ment  to  the  people  of  those  states.  The  reforms 
wrought  out  in  Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  North 
and  South  Dakota,  Iowa,  Kansas,  Nebraska, 
Washington,  Oregon,  and  California  were  se- 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  747 

cured  under  Republican  leadership  and  through 
Republican  legislation. 

This  was  a  most  encouraging  situation.  But 
it  was  not  all.  In  practically  every  state,  ex 
cept  in  the  South,  where  there  is  no  real  Repub 
lican  organization,  the  most  of  the  Republican 
voters  were  struggling  to  overcome  reaction 
ary  control.  This  takes  time,  because  a  well- 
organized  political  machine  is  able  to  maintain 
its  rule  for  a  considerable  period  after  an  over 
whelming  majority  of  the  voters  of  the  party 
are  in  open  revolt  against  it.  But  the  Progres 
sive  element  in  the  Republican  party  had,  in 
four  years,  made  such  strides  toward  mastery,  j 
that  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  national 
convention  of  1912  would  have  been  a  genuinely 
Progressive  convention,  except  for  the  fact  that 
Roosevelt  forced  his  way  into  the  campaign,!  \ 
divided  and  demoralized  the  Progressive  forces, 
swept  aside  the  consideration  of  issues  involving 
Progressive  principles,  and  converted  the  contest 
with  Taft  into  a  campaign  so  bitterly  personal 
that  by  the  time  of  the  Chicago  convention  the 
passions  aroused  upon  both  sides  subordinated 


748  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

everything  to  a  fierce  scramble  to  seat  delegates 
by  hook  or  crook,  and  secure  the  nomination. 
It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  differences  that 
split  the  Republican  party  in  two  were  not  based 
on  a  platform  of  principles,  but  upon  the  ques 
tion  as  to  which  one  of  two  men  should  secure  the 
nomination.  Fraud  and  bribery  were  charged 
upon  both  sides.  Tempers  were  at  white  heat. 
Threats  of  personal  violence  were  common.  In 
vestigation  was  baffled.  There  was  no  chance 
for  argument.  The  truth  was  discounted.  Lies 
were  as  good  as  facts.  The  Roosevelt  men 
charged  that  the  Taft  men  were  stealing  the  con 
vention.  The  Taft  men  charged  the  Roosevelt 
men  with  trying  to  steal  the  convention. 

And  upon  this  mad  squabble  for  office  between 
Taft  and  Roosevelt  under  whose  administrations 
the  Republican  party  had  made  the  trust,  tariff, 
and  special  interest  records  for  which  it  was  most 
criticised,  Roosevelt  proposed  to  destroy  a  sound 
and  vital  Progressive  movement  which  had  al 
ready  gone  far  to  nationalize  itself  within  a  great 
and  powerful  organization. 

Roosevelt's   views  respecting   the   establish- 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  749 

merit  of  a  third  party,  a  little  more  than  a 
year  before,  were  disclosed  on  the  occasion 
of  his  visit  to  Madison  in  the  spring  of  1911. 
On  his  way  from  the  executive  residence,  where 
he  had  been  entertained,  to  the  assembly  cham 
ber,  where  he  was  to  speak,  he  said  to  Gover 
nor  McGovern,  Lieutenant-Governor  Morris, 
and  Speaker  Ingram: 

"By  the  way,  I  wish  I  could  have  a  chance 
to  talk  with  you  boys  about  some  matters  in 
which  I  am  deeply  interested.  I  am  afraid  La 
Follette  will  start  a  new  party.  I  do  not  want 
to  see  that  happen.  I  am  disappointed  with 
Taft.  But  I  do  not  want  to  see  La  Follette 
start  a  new  party  and  create  division.  You 
fellows  here  are  in  a  position  to  reach  him.  I 
wish  you  would  see  him  and  do  all  you  can  to 
prevent  his  taking  that  course." 

In  1911  Roosevelt  thought  it  would  be  a 
great  calamity  to  divide  the  Republican  party. 
It  was  a  good  party  then.  The  only  thing 
that  made  it  so  bad  as  to  deserve  being  riven 
asunder  was  that  it  would  not  nominate  him 
for  a  third  term  in 


750  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

Even  though  a  political  convention,  through 
passion,  intrigue,  or  corruption,  should  fail  to 
represent  the  will  of  the  millions  who  constitute 
a  political  party,  with  inspiring  traditions  and 
Progressive  achievement  in  many  states,  and 
real  Progressive  promise  nationally,  it  seemed 
very  clear  to  me  that  such  failure  should  not  be 
permitted  to  destroy  that  party. 

A  political  party  is  not  made  to  order.  It  is 
the  slow  development  of  powerful  forces  working 
in  our  social  life.  Sound  ideas  seize  upon  the 
human  mind.  Opinions  ripen  into  fixed  con 
victions.  Masses  of  men  are  drawn  together 
by  common  belief  and  organized  about  clearly 
defined  principles.  From  time  to  time  this 
organized  body  expresses  its  purpose  and  names 
candidates  to  represent  its  principles.  The 
millions  cannot  be  assembled.  Until  direct 
nominations  and  the  rigid  control  of  campaign 
expenditures  shall  prevail  they  must  seek  to 
express  their  will  through  the  imperfect  agencies 
of  congressional,  state,  and  national  conventions. 
These  agencies  are  not  the  party.  They  are 
temporarily  delegated  to  represent  the  millions 


Copyright,  by  Harris  6*  Ewing 

"Encouraged  by  Bryan's  support  of  Progressive  principles,  many  Demo 
crats  in  Wisconsin  and  other  states  abandoned  their  party  on  state  issues 
and  supported  the  Republican  Progressive  program." 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  751 

who  constitute  the  party.  If  recreant  to  their 
trust  the  party  may  suffer  the  temporary  defeat 
of  its  purposes.  But  what  abject  folly  to  seek 
upon  such  a  basis  to  destroy  a  great  political 
party  seven  millions  strong,  with  a  clear  Pro 
gressive  majority  in  its  ranks,  within  which 
there  has  been  builded  up  a  Progressive  move 
ment  that  promises  to  make  the  Republican 
party  the  instrument  through  which  government 
shall  be  completely  restored  to  the  people. 

I  would  in  no  degree  disparage  the  good 
work  of  Progressive  Democrats.  Encouraged 
by  Bryan's  support  of  Progressive  principles, 
many  Democrats  in  Wisconsin  and  other  states 
abandoned  their  party  on  state  issues  and  sup 
ported  the  Republican  Progressive  program.^ 
And  it  was  Bryan's  superb  leadership  and  cour 
age  at  Baltimore  which  nominated  a  candidate 
for  the  presidency  who  had  made  a  progressive 
record  as  governor  of  New  Jersey. 

In  no  partisan  spirit,  therefore,  I  have  con 
tended  that  the  Progressive  movement  began 
within  the  Republican  party.  It  rapidly  ad 
vanced  its  control,  shaping  policies  of  state 


752  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

administrations,  and  stamping  its  impress  upon 
national  legislation  as  a  distinctly  Progressive 
Republican  movement.  And  upon  that  fact  in 
recent  political  history  I  appealed  to  Progressive 
Republicans  everywhere  to  maintain  their  organ 
ization  within  the  Republican  party.  To  main 
tain  such  organization,  blind  allegiance  to  every 
party  nomination  and  to  every  party  declara 
tion  is  never  essential. 

The  situation  in  Congress  was  supremely 
important.  Democrats  had  been  in  the  majority 
in  the  House  of  Representatives.  That  control 
had  been  partisan  rather  than  progressive.  The 
leaders  in  the  House  and  the  Democratic 
majority  on  the  principal  committees  had  not 
marked  out  a  progressive  course.  Going  just 
far  enough  to  placate  those  content  to  accept 
form  instead  of  substance,  they  had  never  gone 
far  enough  to  endanger  special  interest  control 
in  legislation. 

The  crisis  in  the  Republican  party,  with 
greater  reason  than  at  any  time  since  1892, 
had  aroused  hope  of  Democratic  success  nation 
ally.  In  view  of  the  present  control  of  the 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  753 

House  and  the  attitude  of  the  strong  Democratic 
leaders  of  the  Senate,  Democratic  victory  car 
ried  with  it  small  assurance  of  progressive  gains 
in  legislation.  Interest  control  in  Congress  may 
change  its  party  label  and  still  be  powerful  in  de 
termining  the  character  of  the  legislation  enacted. 

It  was  time  for  Progressive  Republicans  to  act 
with  the  greatest  deliberation. 

The  course  pursued  by  Roosevelt  and  Taft 
in  the  campaign  and  at  the  Chicago  convention 
destroyed  all  hope  of  a  Progressive  Republican 
victory  in  the  presidential  contest  for  1912.  But 
there  remained  a  most  important  service  to  be 
rendered  by  the  strong  Progressive  element  in 
the  Republican  party.  In  a  large  number  of 
Republican  states  there  had  been  enacted  defin 
itely  related  Progressive  statutes  based  on 
scientific  research  which  had  reconstructed  state 
government,  vitalizing  it  with  human  interest. 
There  were  legislatures  to  elect,  to  carry  forward 
this  and  other  creative  work.  There  were  Pro 
gressive  Republican  governors  and  state  officers 
to  elect,  to  administer  and  safeguard  these 
statutes  and  lead  the  way  along  advancing  lines. 


754  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

In  Congress  the  Progressive  Republicans  in 
the  Senate  and  House  had  furnished  the  only 
consistent  Progressive  program  of  legislation. 
The  bills  offered  and  pressed  for  action  had 
shown  real  constructive  statesmanship.  This 
splendid  body  of  fighting  Progressive  Republi 
cans  forced  Aldrichism  and  Cannonism  to  the 
last  ditch,  exposed  the  iniquities  of  the  Tariff 
bill  of  1909,  tore  to  pieces  the  pernicious  Railroad 
bill  of  1910,  recasting  it  into  a  measure  in  the 
public  interest,  and,  acting  in  unison,  gave  Pro^ 
gressive  Republican  -principles  a  distinct  charac 
ter  of  commanding  importance  throughout  the 
country. 

After  the  disaster  in  1912  to  the  Progressive 
Republican  campaign,  occasioned  by  the  deter 
mination  of  Roosevelt  to  be  nominated  for  a 
third  term,  or  destroy  all  chance  of  making  the 
Republican  party  nationally  ["Progressive,  the 
restoration  of  the  Progressive  group  in  the 
Senate,  as  shown  by  its  action  on  the  wool  bill 
and  other  tariff  measures  in  the  closing  days 
of  the  Second  Session  of  the  Sixty -second  Con 
gress,  attested  the  validity  of  its  principles.  It 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  755 

required  only  the  occasion  and  the  issue  to 
demonstrate  the  fundamental  integrity  of  the 
Progressive  movement  within  the  Republican 
party. 

It  was  my  contention  that  this  great  construc 
tive  work,  in  state  and  national  government,  the 
result  of  years  of  patient  and  intelligent  effort 
within  the  Republican  party,  should  not  be  im 
perilled;  that  the  election  of  Progressive  Repub 
lican  governors,  legislators,  Congressmen,  and  < 
United  States  Senators  should  not  be  jeopard 
ized  to  make  a  new  party  for  Roosevelt,  who  in 
no  sense  represented  the  high  ideals  of  those  who 
made  the  Republican  party  Progressive,  in  many 
states  against  his  opposition,  and  who  nation 
alized  Progressive  policies  in  his  absence  from 
the  country. 

With  Roosevelt  and  his  party,  it  was  solely  a 
question  of  personal  ascendency  and  control. 
This  was  shown  by  the  course  taken  in  various 
states  where  true  Progressive  Republicans  were 
candidates  for  Congress  and  for  the  United 
States  Senate.  Unless  they  followed  him  and  his 
party,  Roosevelt  threatened  every  Progressive 


756  AS  A  CANDlDAiU 

Republican  United  States  Senator  and  Congress 
man  with  defeat,  by  bringing  out  candidates 
against  them  in  their  districts  and  states.  Like 
wise,  he  promised  no  opposition  to  the  Deneens. 
the  Cannons,  and  the  strongest  Standpat 
types  in  the  Republican  party,  if  they  would 
only  declare  for  him,  instead  of  Taft.  To 
win  personally,  for  the  hour,  was  all  in  all  to 
Roosevelt. 

On  him  and  those  who  made  this  war  upon 
Republican  Progressive  achievement  and  Repub 
lican  Progressive  candidates  rests  a  grave  re 
sponsibility. 

It  was  clear  to  me  that  the  highest  obligation 
of  real  Progressive  Republicans  in  every  state 
was  to  maintain  their  organization  and  continue 
o  fight  within  the  lines  of  the  Republican 
party  for  Progressive  principles,  policies,  and 
candidates.  I  felt  that  no  aid  or  encouragement 
should  be  given  to  a  third  party  plan  to  divide 
the  Progressive  vote  and  destroy  the  Progressive 
Republican  movement;  that  no  break  should  be 
permitted  in  the  Progressive  ranks  which  would 
endanger  the  election  of  any  true  Progressive 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  757 

Republican  anywhere;  that  every  effort  should 
be  put  forth  to  increase  the  number  of 
thorough-going  Progressive  Republicans  in 
the  United  States  Senate  and  the  House  of 
Representatives;  that  the  election  of  a  strong 
body  of  Progressive  Republicans  in  both  branches 
of  Congress  might  enable  them  to  hold  the 
balance  of  power  in  legislation;  that  that  balance 
would  serve  as  a  check  upon  any  President,  if 
reactionary,  and  if  Progressive,  would  aid  him 
to  wring  from  reactionary  opposition  in  both 
houses,  legislation  to  protect  public  interest. 

There  was  every  reason  for  conserving  the 
Progressive  Republican  organization. 

Years  before  in  Wisconsin  we  had  precisely 
the  same  condition  —  the  Republican  party,  with 
the  mass  of  its  membership  ready  for  Progres 
sive  legislation,  and  a  leadership  bound  to  the 
service  of  special  interests.  We  forced  the  re 
tirement  of  the  reactionary  leaders,  and  made 
the  Republican  party  the  best  possible  instru 
ment  for  achieving  representative  government. 

I  believed  we  could  do  nationally  with  the 
Republican  party  what  we  did  with  it  in  Wis- 


758  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

consin.  I  still  believe  so.  Within  a  few  years, 
such  progress  has  been  made  in  this  direction  as 
to  justify  that  belief.  It  is  my  conviction  that 
this  will  sooner  bring  government  back  to  the 

)  people  than  will  be  done  through  the  medium 

i  of  a  new  and  untried  party  organization.  This 
was  most  emphatically  true  when  that  new 
party  had  for  its  leader  the  man,  under  whose 
administrations,  the  Republican  party  made 
much  of  the  record  for  which  it  is  most  severely 
condemned. 

For  these  reasons  I  shall  remain  in  the  Repub- 
2  lican  party  at  jthis  time.  I  shall  continue  to 
denounce  its  representatives  when  they  betray 
public  interest.  I  shall  refuse  to  be  bound  by  its 
action  whenever  it  fails  in  its  duty  to  the  country, 
and  I  shall  do  all  in  my  power  to  restore  it  to 
the  high  place  in  the  service  and  confidence  and 
affection  of  the  American  people,  which  it  held 
when  it  was  the  party  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

,  If  it  shall  fail  to  become  thoroughly  Progressive 
,  I  as  a  national  party,     I  shall  then  stand  ready 

\to  take  such  further  action  as  shall  seem  to 
serve  best  the  interests  of  the  country. 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  759 

Through  the  pages  of  this  autobiography,  I 
have  dealt  with  certain  governmental  problems, 
state  and  national,  upon  which,  during  the  past 
twenty-five  years,  I  have  studied  and  reflected. 
I  have  touched  on  these  issues  only  as  they  were 
related  to  my  experience,  it  having  been  no  part 
of  my  plan  to  treat  them  exhaustively.  But 
my  own  story  could  not  have  been  complete 
without  a  discussion  incidentally,  of  certain 
questions  of  public  concern  which,  from  early 
manhood,  have  been  a  part  of  my  daily  thinking. 
With  maturer  years,  the  fundamental  principles 
of  democracy  involved  have  worked  themselves 
profoundly  into  my  convictions,  and  the 
struggle  could  not  have  been  sustained,  year  after 
year,  often  in  the  face  of  disappointment  and 
defeat,  had  I  felt  less  deeply  the  eternal  justice 
of  the  end  sought  to  be  attained. 

I  have  never  assumed  to  say  that  I  had  worked 
out  to  the  last  conclusion  the  solution  of  all 
these  complex  problems.  But  years  of  plodding 
investigation  convinced  me  of  the  economic 
soundness  of  my  basis,  from  which  I  have 
been  content  to  take  the  next  forward  step  - 


760  AS  A  CANDIDATE 

always  sure  of  my  ground,  and  sure  of  my 
direction. 

With  the  changing  phases  of  a  twenty-five- 
year  contest  I  have  been  more  and  more  im 
pressed  with  the  deep  underlying  singleness  of 
the  issue.  It  is  not  railroad  regulation.  It 
is  not  the  tariff,  or  conservation,  or  the  currency. 
It  is  not  the  trusts.  These  and  other  questions 
are  but  manifestations  of  one  great  struggle. 
The  supreme  issue,  involving  all  the  others,  is 
the  encroachment  of  the  powerful  few  upon  the 
rights  of  the  many.  This  mighty  power  has  come 
between  the  people  and  their  government.  Can 
we  free  ourselves  from  this  control?  Can  repre 
sentative  government  be  restored?  Shall  we, 
with  statesmanship  and  constructive  legislation, 
meet  these  problems,  or  shall  we  pass  them  on, 
with  all  the  possibilities  of  conflict  and  chaos, 
to  future  generations? 

There  never  was  a  higher  call  to  greater 
service  than  in  this  protracted  fight  for  social 
justice.  I  believe,  with  increasing  depth  of  con 
viction,  that  we  will,  in  our  day,  meet  our  re 
sponsibility  with  fearlessness  and  faith;  that 


AS  A  CANDIDATE  761 

we  will  reclaim  and  preserve  for  our  children, 
not  only  the  form  but  the  spirit  of  our  free  in 
stitutions.  And  in  our  children  must  we  rest 
our  hope  for  the  ultimate  democracy. 


NOTE:  The  most  important  question  now 
before  the  American  people  is  that  of  the  com 
bined  capital  represented  in  trusts,  in  consoli 
dated  railroads,  and  in  the  consolidated  banking 
interests,  controlling  money  and  credit.  I  ap 
pend  herewith  an  address  dealing  with  the  history 
of  the  growth  of  this  power  and  some  suggestions 
for  meeting  its  recognized  evils: 


SPEECH  OF 
ROBERT   M.  LA  FOLLETTE 

Delivered  at  the 

ANNUAL  BANQUET  OF  THE  PERIODICAL 
PUBLISHERS'  ASSOCIATION 

Philadelphia,  February  2,  1912. 

Mr.  Toastmaster,  President  Curtis,  and  Gentle 
men  of  the  Periodical  Publishers'  Association ^^ 

The  great  issue  before  the  American  people 
to-day  is  the  control  of  their  own  government. 
In  the  midst  of  political  struggle,  it  is  not  easy 
to  see  the  historical  relations  of  the  present  Pro 
gressive  movement.  But  it  represents  a  con- 

762 


APPENDIX  763 

flict  as  old  as  the  history  of  man  —  the  fight  to 
maintain  human  liberty,  the  rights  of  all  the 
people. 

A  mighty  power  has  been  builded  up  in  this 
country  in  recent  years,  so  strong,  yet  so  insidious 
and  far-reaching  in  its  influence,  that  men  are 
gravely  inquiring  whether  its  iron  grip  on  govern 
ment  and  business  can  ever  be  broken.  Again 
and  again  it  has  proved  strong  enough  to  nomi 
nate  the  candidates  of  both  political  parties. 
It  rules  in  the  organization  of  legislative  bodies, 
state  and  national,  and  of  the  committees  which 
frame  legislation.  Its  influence  is  felt  in  cabi 
nets  and  in  the  policies  of  administrations,  and 
is  clearly  seen  in  the  appointment  of  prosecuting 
officers  and  the  selection  of.  judges  upon  the 
Bench. 

In  business  it  has  crippled  or  destroyed  com 
petition.  It  has  stifled  individual  initiative. 
It  has  fixed  limitations  in  the  field  of  production. 
It  makes  prices  and  imposes  its  burdens  upon 
the  consuming  public  at  will. 

In  transportation,  after  a  prolonged  struggle 
for  government  control,  it  is,  with  only  slight 
check  upon  its  great  power,  still  master  of  the 
highways  of  commerce. 

In  finance  its  power  is  unlimited.  In  large 
affairs  it  gives  or  withholds  credit,  and  from 
time  to  time  contracts  or  inflates  the  volume  of 
the  money  required  for  the  transaction  of  the 
business  of  the  country,  regardless  of  everything 
excepting  its  own  profits. 


764  APPENDIX 

It  has  acquired  vast  areas  of  the  public  do 
main,  and  is  rapidly  monopolizing  the  natural 
resources  —  timber,  iron,  coal,  oil. 

And  this  THING  has  grown  up  in  a  country 
where,  under  the  Constitution  and  the  law,  the 
citizen  is  sovereign! 

The  related  events  which  led  to  this  cen 
tralized  control  are  essential  to  a  clear  under 
standing  of  the  real  danger  —  the  magnitude  of 
this  danger  now  menacing  the  very  existence  of 
every  independent  concern  remaining  in  the 
field  of  business  enterprise. 

The  First  Period  —  The  Individual  and  the 
Partnership.  -  -  For  nearly  a  century  after  Jef- 
j  ferson  declared  for  a  government  of  "equal 
rights  for  all,  and  special  privileges  for  none," 
the  business  of  the  country  was  conducted  by 
individuals  and  partnerships.  During  this  first 
period  business  methods  were  simple,  its  pro 
portions  modest,  and  there  was  little  call  for 
larger  capital  than  could  be  readily  furnished  by 
the  individual  or,  in  the  most  extreme  cases,  a 
partnership  of  fair  size. 

From  the  beginning,  when  men  bartered  their 

products  in  exchange,  down  through  all  the  ages, 

the  business  of  the  world  had  been  conducted 

i  under    the    natural    laws    of    trade  —  demand, 

\  supply,    competition.     Like    all    natural    laws, 

they    were    fair    and    impartial;    they    favored 

neither  the  producer  nor  the  consumer.     They 

had  ruled  the  market  and  made  the  prices  when 

the  individual  and  the  partnership  conducted 


APPENDIX  765 

substantially  all  commercial  enterprises  during 
the  first  period  of  our  business  life. 

But  as  the  country  developed,  as  the  popu 
lation  poured  over  the  Alleghenies,  occupied 
the  Mississippi  Valley,  pushed  on  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  down  the  western  slope  to  Cali 
fornia,  discovering  the  boundless  wealth  of  our 
natural  resources  -  -  the  fields  and  forests,  the 
mountains  of  iron  and  coal  and  precious  metals, 
there  was  a  pressing  call  on  every  hand  for  larger 
capital  beyond  the  power  of  any  individual  or 
any  partnership  to  supply.  We  had  outgrown 
the  simple  methods;  there  was  a  demand  for  a 
new  business  device  strong  enough  to  unlock  the 
treasure  house  of  the  new  world. 

The  Second  Period --The  Private  Corporation. 

-  The  modern  corporation  was  invented  to  meet 
that  demand,  and  general  statutes  for  incorpora 
tion  were  soon  upon  the  statute  books  of  every 
state.  Their  adoption  marked  the  beginning  of 
the  second  period  of  our  business  life.  It  was 
the  best  machine  ever  invented  for  the  purpose; 
simple  in  organization,  effective  in  operation. 

A  hundred,  a  thousand,  any  number  of  men 
could  associate  their  capital,  and  employing  the 
representative  principle  upon  which  our  country 
was  based,  vote  for  and  elect  a  president,  a 
general  manager,  a  board  of  directors,  a  body  of 
men,  no  larger  than  an  ordinary  partnership, 
and  clothe  them  with  power  to  conduct  the  busi 
ness  to  the  success  of  which  the  aggregate  capi 
tal  was  contributed. 


766  APPENDIX 

Men  no  longer  stood  baffled  by  the  magni 
tude  of  any  undertaking,  but  promptly  enlisted 
an  army  of  contributors,  large  or  small,  massed 
together  the  required  capital  and  under  the  direc 
tion  of  the  officers  and  directors  of  the  corpora 
tion,  a  small  executive  body,  seized  upon  these 
waiting  opportunities,  and  this  second  period 
marked  a  material  development,  surpassing 
anything  in  the  world's  history.  It  was  not  the 
era  of  greatest  individual  fortune  building,  but 
it  was  the  period  of  greatest  general  prosperity. 
And  why? 

The  natural  laws  of  trade  —  demand,  supply 
p  and  competition — still  ruled  the  market  and 
made  the  prices  in  the  second  period  of  our  busi 
ness  life.  The  private  corporation,  in  a  large 
measure,  supplanted  the  individual,  and  the 
partnership  in  mining,  manufacturing  and  large 
commercial  enterprises,  but  each  corporation 
competed  with  every  other  in  the  same  line  of 
business.  Production  was  larger,  development 
more  rpaid,  but,  under  the  free  play  of  com 
petition,  the  resulting  prosperity  was  fairly 
distributed  between  the  producer  and  the 
consumer,  the  seller  and  the  buyer,  because 
profits  and  prices  were  reasonable. 

Big  capital  behind  the  private  corporations 
drove  business  at  a  pace  and  upon  a  scale  never 
before  witnessed.  Competition  was  at  once  the 
spur  to  the  highest  efficiency  and  the  check 
against  waste  and  abuse  of  power. 

In  this  period  of  our  industrial  and  commer- 


APPENDIX  767 

cial  progress,  America  amazed  and  alarmed  our 
business  rivals  of  the  old  world.  We  were  soon 
foremost  among  the  nations  of  the  earth  in 
agriculture,  in  mines  and  mining,  in  manufactures 
and  in  commerce  as  well. 

The  American  market  became  the  greatest 
thing  in  all  the  material  world.  Its  control 
became  the  one  thing  coveted. 

The  Third  Period  —  The  Combination  of  Cor 
porations. —  The  evil  hour  was  come  upon  us. 
Daring,  unscrupulous  men  plotted  in  violation  of 
the  common  law,  the  criminal  statutes  and 
against  public  right  to  become  masters  of  that 
market  and  take  what  toll  they  pleased.  To 
do  this  thing  it  was  necessary  to  set  aside, 
abrogate,  nullify  the  natural  laws  of  trade  that 
had  ruled  in  business  for  centuries.  Production 
was  to  be  limited,  competition  stifled  and  prices 
arbitrarily  fixed  by  selfish  decree.  And  thus 
we  entered  upon  the  third  period  of  our  business 
and  commercial  life  —  the  period  of  a  combina 
tion  of  the  corporations  under  a  single  control 
in  each  line  of  business.  It  was  not  an  evolu 
tion;  it  was  a  revolution. 

And  yet  certain  economists  set  it  down  in  the 
literature  of  the  day  that  the  Supreme  Ruler  of 
the  universe  reserved  in  His  great  plan  a  divinely 
appointed  place  and  time  for  a  Rockefeller,  a 
Morgan,  a  Carnegie,  a  Baer,  to  evolve  this  new 
law,  which  should  enable  them  to  appropriate 
the  wealth  of  the  country  and  Mexicanize  its 
business  and  its  people. 


768  APPENDIX 

The  combination  became  supreme  in  each 
important  line,  controlling  the  markets  for  the 
raw  material  and  the  finished  product,  largely 
dictating  the  price  of  everything  we  sell  and  the 
price  of  everything  we  buy  -  -  beef,  sugar, 
woolens,  cottons,  coal,  oil,  copper,  zinc,  iron,  steel, 
agricultural  implements,  hardware,  gas,  elec 
tric  light,  food  supplies. 

Monopoly  acquired  dominion  everywhere. 

It  brought  with  it  the  inevitable  results  of 
monopoly  —  extortionate  prices,  inferior  prod 
ucts.  We  soon  found  shoddy  in  everything 
we  wear,  and  adulteration  in  everything  we  eat. 

Did  these  masters  of  business  stop  there? 
By  no  means!  " Increase  of  appetite  had  grown 
by  what  it  fed  on."  The  floodgates  of  fictitious 
capitalization  were  thrown  wide  open.  These 
organizations  of  combinations  overcapitalized 
for  a  double  purpose.  The  issue  of  bonds  and 
stocks  in  excess  of  investment  covered  up  the 
exaction  of  their  immense  profits,  and  likewise 
offered  an  unlimited  field  for  promotion  and 
speculation. 

The  establishment  of  this  third  period  was  the 
beginning  of  rapidly  advancing  prices,  increasing 
the  cost  of  living  upon  people  of  average  earning 
power  until  the  burden  is  greater  than  they  can 
bear. 

The  Fourth  Period  --  The  Combination  of 
Combinations.  -  -  The  strife  for  more  money, 
more  power  —  more  power,  more  money  — 
swept  everything  before  it. 


APPENDIX  769 

It  remained  only  to  bring  together  into  a  com 
munity  of  interest  or  ownership  the  great  com 
binations  which  controlled,  each  in  its  own  field 
—  in  short,  to  combine  these  combinations. 

One  needs  but  to  study  the  directory  of  direc 
tories  of  the  great  business  concerns  of  the 
country  to  determine  the  extent  to  which  this 
combination  of  combinations  has  been  success 
fully  accomplished,  thus  carrying  us  over  into 
the  fourth  period  of  our  industrial  and  com 
mercial  life  — -  the  period  of  complete  industrial 
and  commercial  servitude  in  which  we  now 
unhappily  find  ourselves.  And  this  supreme 
control  of  the  business  of  the  country  is  the 
triumph  of  men  who  have  at  every  step  defied 
public  opinion,  the  common  law  and  criminal 
statutes. 

This  condition  is  intolerable.  It  is  hostile 
to  every  principle  of  democracy.  If  maintained 
it  is  the  end  of  democracy.  We  may  preserve 
the  form  of  our  representative  government  and 
lose  the  soul,  the  spirit  of  our  free  institutions. 

John  Sherman,  the  broadest,  clearest  vis- 
ioned  statesman  of  his  time,  saw  this  danger 
away  in.  advance  and  wisely  sought  to  fortify 
the  government  to  meet  and  destroy  it. 

Of  this  mighty  power  he  said : 

"It  is  a  kingly  prerogative,  inconsistent  with  our  form 
of  government.  If  anything  is  wrong,  this  is  wTrong.  If 
we  will  not  endure  a  king  as  a  political  power,  we  should 
not  endure  a  king  over  the  production,  transportation,  and 
sale  of  any  of  the  necessities  of  life.  If  we  would  not  sub- 


770  APPENDIX 

mit  to  an  emperor,  we  should  not  submit  to  an  autocrat 
of  trade  with  power  to  prevent  competition  and  to  fix  the 
price  of  any  commodity.  *  *  *  The  remedy  should  be 
swift  and  sure." 

Sherman  well  understood  that  this  govern 
ment  could  not  exist  as  a  free  government  with 
any  man  or  group  of  men  invested  with  the 
kingly  prerogative  over  the  production,  trans 
portation,  and  sale  of  any  of  the  necessaries  of 
life.  No  free  people  in  history  very  long  main 
tained  their  political  freedom  after  having  once 
surrendered  their  industrial  and  commercial 
freedom. 

The  Sherman  law  placed  in  the  hands  of  the 
executive  department  of  this  government  the 
most  perfect  weapon  which  the  ingenuity  of 
man  could  forge  for  the  protection  of  the  people 
against  the  power  of  monopoly. 

It  will  be  the  impartial  verdict  of  history  that 
the  executive  department  of  government  could 
have  saved  the  people  from  the  appalling  condi 
tions  which  confront  us  to-day,  if  all  the  power  of 
this  great  government  had  been  put  forth  to 
enforce  the  anti-trust  law.  Two  or  three  score 
of  prosecutions  dragging  along  in  the  courts  at  a 
snail's  pace,  from  administration  to  adminis 
tration,  was  little  more  than  notice  to  these 
business  kings  that  they  might  proceed  to  set 
up  their  authority  against  the  government  and 
extend  their  dominion  over  trade  and  trans 
portation;  that  there  was  no  real  dapger  of  the 
law  being  so  enforced  as  to  do  muchlmore  than 


APPENDIX  771 

to  affect  the  political  situation  from  time  to 
time. 

That  this  was  accepted  as  the  government's 
position  by  the  interests  can  now  be  made  very 
plain. 

The    organization     of     combinations     began 
quite  actively  early  in  1898.     The  high  tariff 
rates  of  the  Dingley  law  encouraged  combina 
tion  and  aided  in  its  ultimate  purpose. 
•'!  Between  January  1,  1898,  and  January  1,1900, 
149  trusts  were  formed  to  suppress  competition 
|  and  control  prices.     These  combinations  were 
/capitalized  for  $3,784,000,000.     The  next  four 
/  years  were  years  of  enormous  trust  growth. 

From  January  1,  1900,  to  January  1,  1904, 
k     taking  account  of  only  the  more  important  trusts, 
\   8,664  great  plants  were  combined,  with  a  total 
L-capitalization  of  $20,379,162,511. 

Prices  were  mounting  higher  and  higher.  The 
people  were  crying  aloud  in  protest,  but  protest 
and  denunciation  caused  no  fear  on  the  part  of 
the  trust  makers,  so  long  as  the  government  was 
actually  prosecuting  less  than  an  average  of 
seven  cases  a  year. 

(i  Mark  what  followed:     From  January  1,  1904, 
/to  January  1,  1908,  trust  consolidation  made 

(mighty    strides,    and    the    total    capitalization 
reached  the  astounding  sum  of  $31,672,160,754. 
In  these  four  years  the  capitalization  increased 
<inpre  than  55  per  cent. 

The  Centralization  of  Railroad  Control. — In 
the  meantime  what  were  the  powers  doing  in 


772  APPENDIX 

the  great  field  of  transportation?  A  swift  back 
ward  glance  reveals  the  fact  that  the  same  sys 
tem  of  consolidation,  centralized  control  and 
suppressed  competition  had  been  forced  through 
in  violation  of  law  and  public  right. 

The  vital  interests  of  organized  society  in 
commerce  and  the  public  nature  of  transporta 
tion  impose  upon  government  the  duty  to  estab 
lish  and  maintain  control  over  common  carriers. 

To  discharge  this  obligation  the  government 
must  exact  from  the  common  carrier: 

(1)  Reasonable  rates,  (2)  impartial  rates, 
(3)  adequate  and  impartial  services. 

The  public  is  interested  in  adequate  and  im 
partial  services.  The  shipper  is  especially  in 
terested  in  equal  and  impartial  rates.  The 
consumer  is  especially  interested  in  reasonable 
rates. 

For  forty  years  after  railroads  were  estab 
lished  there  was  no  attempt  to  invoke  govern 
mental  control.  The  public  depended  solely 
upon  competition  between  railroads  for  the 
protection  of  public  interests. 

Finally  it  learned  the  elementary  lesson  that 
the  railroad  is  a  natural  monopoly;  that  there 
i  can  be  no  competition  excepting  at  common 
points,  and  that  at  common  points  the  railroads 
were  destroying  all  competition  by  pooling 
agreements. 

Then  came  the  demand  in  1870  for  govern 
mental  control  —  in  order  to  secure  reasonable 
rates.  It  originated  in  the  upper  Mississippi 


APPENDIX  773 

Valley  —  in  Wisconsin,  Iowa,  Minnesota,  and 
Illinois,  for  a  control  of  rates  within  the  state. 

It  spread  east  and  west  and  became  a 
national  movement  for  controlling  interstate 
commerce. 

The  supreme  courts  of  the  middle  western 
states  sustained  the  state  legislation.  The 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  sustained 
the  state  courts,  and  the  power  of  the  state 
and  federal  governments  to  control  and  fix  rea 
sonable  transportation  rates,  each  in  its  own 
sphere,  was  adjudicated  as  a  public  right  thirty- 
eight  years  ago. 

For  a  generation  of  time  since  those  decisions 
the  people  have  struggled  to  secure  an  interstate 
commerce  law  which  would  establish  and  enforce 
reasonable  rates.  That  was  the  relief  which  the 
consumer,  the  great  body  of  the  people,  demanded 
—  reasonable  rates. 

The  shippers  have  no  interest  in  reasonable 
rates.  They  do  not  pay  the  freight.  The  con 
sumer  pays  the  freight.  But  the  shipper  is  at 
a  disadvantage  in  supplying  his  trade  unless  he 
has  rates  relatively  equal  to  those  given  to  other 
shippers  engaged  in  the  same  business. 

Shippers  could  easily  present  concrete  cases 
of  injustice.  They  could  readily  organize  and 
appear  before  committees  and  make  their  repre 
sentatives  feel  their  power. 

Not  so  with  the  consumer,  who,  in  the  end,  pays 
all  the  freight,  as  a  part  of  the  purchase  price  of 
everything  he  buys.  He  cannot  identify  the 


774  APPENDIX 

freight  charge,  because  it  is  a  part  of  the  price 
he  pays  when  he  purchases  supplies.  However 
small  the  item,  in  the  aggregate  it  is  important 
to  him.  He  cannot  maintain  a  lobby.  If  his 
United  States  Senators  and  his  Congressmen  do 
not  represent  him,  he  is  helpless. 

What  is  the  net  result  of  thirty-eight  years' 
struggle  with  the  railroads?  Congress  enacted 
the  interstate  commerce  law  of  1887;  the  Elkins 
law  of  1903;  the  Hepburn  law  of  1906;  and  the 
recent  law  of  1910. 

Out  of  all  this  legislation  the  shippers  have 
been  able  to  secure  a  partial  enforcement  of  their 
contention  for  an  equalization  of  rates. 

The  consumers  have  lost  in  their  long  fight 
for  reasonable  rates. 

After  all  these  years  it  is  not  to-day  within 
the  power  of  the  interstate  commerce  commis 
sion  to  take  the  first  step  to  ascertain  a  reason 
able  rate.  There  is  a  vast  difference  between 
equal  rates  and  reasonable  rates. 

The  consumers  are  no  nearer  to  securing 
reasonable  rates  than  they  were  thirty-eight 
years  ago. 

Ninety  million  people  are  to-day  paying 
annually  to  the  railroads  $2,500,000,000  for 
transportation  —  a  sum  greater  than  the  total 
cost  of  maintaining  the  federal  government, 
the  state  governments,  the  county  governments, 
and  all  the  municipal  governments  of  the  entire 
country. 
/  The  power  of  the  railroads  over  Congress 


APPENDIX  775 

has  been  well-nigh  supreme.  That  their  in 
fluence  was  strong  enough  to  defeat  legislation 
is  emphatically  asserted  by  a  prominent  United 
States  Senator,  the  writer  of  a  letter  which  I 
quote: 

"UNITED  STATES  SENATE, 
"WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  Feb.   9,   1903. 
"DEAR  SIR: 

"  Yours  of  the  19th  ult.  came  duly  to  hand.  It  has  hap 
pened  as  I  feared:  The  interstate  commerce  committee 
will  not  report  the  measure  giving  power  to  the  interstate 
commerce  commission  to  fix  rates.  It  is  expecting  too 
much  from  human  nature  that  Senators  whose  every  asso 
ciation  is  with  the  great  railroad  corporations,  and  whose 
political  lives  largely  depend  upon  them,  should  in  good 
faith  approve  a  measure  that  would  to  an  extent  make  the 
railroads  a  servant  of  the  people,  and  to  be  subject  to  the 
decision  of  the  commission  when  a  question  of  rates  is 
raised.  The  Senate  committee  is  by  a  decided  majority 
men  who  bear  these  relations  to  the  railroads.  I  hope 
that  some  time  in  the  future  the  committee  will  be  so  con 
stituted  that  legislation  of  the  character  mentioned  will 
issue  from  it,  but  I  am  afraid  you  and  I  will  be  many  years 
older  when  that  occurs.  Yours  truly, 


The  control  of  transportation  was  achieved 
through  combination.  Less  than  twenty  years 
ago  the  railroads,  overriding  the  law,  secretly 
combined  to  suppress  every  trace  of  competition 
and  to  advance  rates. 

By  1897,  922  railroad  corporations,  with  250 
allied  railroads,  having  altogether  178,307  miles 
of  road,  constituting  95  per  cent,  of  the  vital 


776  APPENDIX 

railway  mileage  of  the  country,  were  organized 
into  six  systems,  known  as  the  Vanderbilt, 
Pennsylvania,  Morgan-Hill,  Gould-Rockefeller, 
Moore-Leeds  and  Harriman-Kuhn-Loeb  groups 
and  their  allies. 

Since  that  time  further  concentration  and 
control  has  increased  the  mileage  of  these  groups 
to  more  than  200,000  miles  of  road.  These 
groups  are  controlled  by  eight  men,  and,  as 
stated  by  John  Moody,  in  1904,  "the  superior 
dominating  influence  of  Mr.  Rockefeller  and 
Mr.  Morgan  is  felt  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  in 
all  of  the  groups." 

But  an  even  greater  danger  was  in  waiting, 
-  the  control  of  capital  and  credit,  the  very  life 
of  all  business. 

The  Centralized  Control  of  Banking,  Capital, 
and  Credits. — The  country  is  only  just  beginning 
to  understand  how  completely  great  banking 
institutions  in  the  principal  money  centres  have 
become  bound  up  with  the  control  of  industrial 
institutions,  the  railroads  and  franchise  com 
binations. 

That  there  was  a  tendency  on  the  part  of 
great  banking  associations  to  merge  and  com 
bine  could  not  be  overlooked.  But  while  finan 
cial  and  economic  writers  had  directed  public 
attention  to  the  fact,  and  had  even  pointed  out 
the  opportunity  and  temptation  for  the  use  of 
this  augmented  power,  in  connection  with  the 
promotion  of  the  speculative  side  of  business 
organization,  they  were  slow  to  believe  that 


APPENDIX  777 

banking  institutions  could  be  so  prostituted. 
Certain  critical  observers  had,  however,  as  long 
as  five  or  six  years  ago,  suggested  the  dangerous 
tendencies  in  this  direction. 

Thus  early  an  English  economist,  writing  in 
LittelVs  Living  Age,  said : 

"The  recent  extreme  stringency  of  money  in  New  York 
would  probably  never  have  arisen  if  the  banks,  instead  of 
preparing  for  the  autumn  demands,  had  not  locked  up 
their  funds  in  the  financiering  of  Wall  Street.  That  the 
banks  are,  to  a  large  extent,  under  the  domination  of  the 
big  financiers  is  well  known,  and  the  recent  insurance 
investigations  have  shown  how,  under  such  domination, 
private  interests  may  be  made  to  prevail  over  those  of  the 
public." 

Addressing  the  Minnesota  Bankers'  Associa 
tion  at  Lake  Minnetonka  about  this  time, 
Thomas  F.  Woodlock,  formerly  editor  of  the 
Wall  Street  Journal,  author  of  "The  Anatomy  of 
Railroad  Reports,"  and  now  a  member  of  the 
New  York  Exchange,  sounded  this  note  of 
warning : 

"The  one  thing  that  stands  out  most  prominent,  in  my 
judgment,  with  reference  to  Wall  Street  banking,  is  the 
danger  of  the  concentration  of  banking  powers  in  the 
hands  of  a  few  great  speculative  interests.  We  have 
clearly  defined  tendencies  in  Wall  Street,  the  ultimate 
effect  of  which  is  likely  to  be  the  creation  of  two  or  three 
powerful  groups  of  banks.  There  is,  for  example,  the  so- 
called  *  Standard  Oil'  group  of  banks  headed  by  the  Na 
tional  City;  there  is  the  so-called  'Morgan  Life  Insurance' 
group,  with  the  National  Bank  of  Commerce  and  the 
First  National  Bank  at  its  head.  These  two  groups  con- 


778  APPENDIX 

tain  many  of  the  most  powerful  banks  in  New  York  City, 
and  together  account  for  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
total  volume  of  credit  at  the  disposal  of  the  public.  *  *  * 
The  connection  between  the  management  of  the  banks  in 
New  York  City  and  the  great  financial  and  speculative 
interests  is  very  close,  and  if  we  ever  have  serious  banking 
trouble  it  will  come  from  this  fact." 

In  an  article  on  the  "Concentration  of  Bank 
ing  Interests  in  the  United  States"  (written  in 
1905),  Charles  J.  Bullock,  formerly  professor  of 
economics,  Williams  College,  now  at  Harvard, 
said : 

"Unlike  the  central  banks  of  other  countries,  our  largest 
institutions  are  closely  connected  with  various  industrial 
interests,  so  that  they  do  not  occupy  an  independent  posi 
tion.  Their  policy  is  not  controlled  with  sole  regard  for 
the  general  welfare  of  our  banking  system;  but  they  have 
been  drawn  into  vast  enterprises,  into  promotion  or  reor 
ganization,  often  of  a  speculative  character,  and  have  dis 
played  less,  not  more,  than  ordinary  conservatism.  The 
National  City  Bank  stood  sponsor  for  the  Amalgamated 
Copper  Company,  and  the  First  National  Bank  has  lent 
its  aid  to  the  various  undertakings  with  which  Mr.  Morgan 
has  been  identified." 

Under  the  title  "Perils  of  the  Money  Trust," 
the  Wall  Street  Journal  (1903)  editorially  pointed 
out  these  dangers  in  the  following  language : 

"What  is  taking  place  is  a  concentration  of  banking 
that  is  not  merely  a  normal  growth,  but  concentration 
that  comes  from  combination,  consolidation  and  other 
methods  employed  to  secure  monopolistic  power.  Not 
only  this,  but  this  concentration  has  not  been  along  the 
lines  of  commercial  banking.  The  great  banks  of  con- 


APPENDIX  779 

centration  are  in  close  alliance  with  financial  interests 
intimately  connected  with  promotion  of  immense  enter 
prises,  many  of  them  being  largely  speculative.  The  bank 
credits  of  the  country  are  being  rapidly  concentrated  in 
the  hands  of  a  few  bankers  who  are  more  interested  in 
banking  on  its  financial  (watered  stock)  side  than  in  bank 
ing  on  its  commercial  side. 

"Such  concentration  as  this  is  dangerous  in  a  political 
sense.  The  people  have  already  been  greatly  disturbed 
by  the  concentration  that  has  taken  place  in  the  industrial 
world.  *  *  *  But  concentration  in  the  industrial 
world  is  a  far  less  menacing  condition  than  concentration 
in  banking.  The  men  or  set  of  men  who  control  the 
credits  of  the  country  control  the  country. 

"And  if  this  concentration  continues  at  the  rapid  rate 
with  which  it  has  progressed  in  the  past  ten  years  there 
will  surely  come  a  time  when  the  people,  alarmed  at  the 
growth,  will  rise  up  in  some  vigorous  measure  to  assert 
their  power.  Such  an  uprising  would  involve  the  most 
serious  consequences  and  would  likely  be  carried  to  the 
most  unreasonable  limits.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
further  concentration  of  banking  power  in  New  York 
is  the  end  in  view  of  some  of  our  leading  bankers.  They 
believe  that  there  will  be  a  further  reduction  in  the  num 
ber  of  banks  and  a  further  increase  in  the  power  of  the  big 
banks.  That  is  one  reason  why  this  banking  concentra 
tion  needs  to  be  studied  and  its  consequences  carefully 
weighed. 

"But  there  is  still  another  reason  why  this  development 
in  modern  banking  is  open  to  criticism.  It  is  largely  a 
departure  from  commercial  banking.  It  is  turning  the 
power  over  bank  credits  into  financial  (stock  promotion) 
channels.  So  long  as  the  country  is  prosperous  no  imme 
diate  danger  may  be  apprehended  from  such  a  development 
as  that.  *  '  *  *  But  it  is  always  the  unexpected  that 
happens,  and  our  panics  are  commonly  ushered  in  by 
some  unforeseen  calamity  and  it  is  a  fair  inquiry  to  make 
whether  banking  conducted  on  a  "department-store" 


780  APPENDIX 

principle,  with  credits  concentrated  in  a  few  great  institu 
tions,  and  with  these  institutions  having  large  interests 
in  financial  and  speculative  enterprises,  would  be  in  a  po 
sition  in  such  a  moment  of  unexpected  calamity  to  do  more 
than  to  protect  the  financial  and  speculative  interests 
with  which  it  is  allied.  In  such  a  contingency  what  pro 
tection  would  be  left  for  the  great  commercial  interests  of 
the  country?" 

The  plain  truth  is  that  legitimate  commercial 
banking  is  being  eaten  up  by  speculative  bank 
ing.  The  greatest  banks  of  the  financial  centre 
of  the  country  have  ceased  to  be  agents  of  com 
merce  arid  have  become  primarily  agencies  of 
promotion  and  speculation.  By  merging  the 
largest  banks,  trust  companies,  and  insurance 
companies  masses  of  capital  have  been  brought 
under  one  management,  to  be  employed  not  as 
the  servant  of  commerce,  but  as  its  master;  not 
to  supply  legitimate  business  and  to  facilitate 
exchange,  but  to  subordinate  the  commercial 
demands  of  the  country  upon  the  banks  to  call 
loans  in  Wall  Street  and  to  finance  industrial 
organizations,  always  speculative,  and  often 
unlawful  in  character.  Trained  men,  who  a 
dozen  years  ago  stood  first  among  the  bankers  of 
the  world  as  heads  of  the  greatest  banks  of  New 
York  City,  are,  in  the  main,  either  displaced  or 
do  the  bidding  of  men  who  are  not  bankers,  but 
masters  of  organization. 

The  banks  which  were  then  managed  by 
bankers  as  independent  commercial  institutions 
are  now  owned  in  groups  by  a  few  men,  whose 


APPENDIX  781 

principal  interests  are  in  railroads,  traction, 
telegraph,  cable,  shipping,  iron  and  steel,  copper, 
coal,  oil,  gas,  insurance,  etc. 

This  subversion  of  banking  by  alliance  with 
promotion  and  stock  speculation  is  easily  traced. 

There  was  every  inducement  for  those  who 
controlled  transportation  and  a  few  great  basic 
industries  to  achieve  control  of  money  in  the 
financial  centre  of  the  country. 

The  centralization  of  the  banking  power  in 
New  York  City  would  not  only  open  the  way  for 
financing  the  reorganization  and  consolidation  of 
industrial  enterprises  and  of  public  utilities 
throughout  the  country,  but  would  place  those 
in  authority  where  they  could  control  the  mar 
kets  on  stocks  and  bonds  almost  at  will. 

With  this  enormous  concentration  of  business 
it  is  possible  to  create,  artificially,  periods  of 
prosperity  and  periods  of  panic.  Prices  can  be 
lowered  or  advanced  at  the  will  of  the  "Sys 
tem."  When  the  farmer  must  move  his  crops  a 
scarcity  of  money  may  be  created  and  prices 
lowered.  When  the  crop  passes  into  the  con 
trol  of  the  speculator  the  artificial  stringency 
may  be  relieved  and  prices  advanced,  and  the 
illegitimate  profit  raked  off  the  agricultural 
industry  may  be  pocketed  in  Wall  Street. 

If  an  effort  is  made  to  compel  any  one  of  these 
great  "Interests"  to  obey  the  law,  it  is  easy  for 
them  to  enter  into  a  conspiracy  to  destroy  who 
ever  may  be  responsible  for  the  undertaking. 

The  bare  names  of  the  directors  of  two  great 


782  APPENDIX 

bank  groups  —  the  Standard  Oil  group  and  the 
Morgan  group  —  given  in  connection  with  their 
other  business  associations  is  all  the  evidence 
that  need  be  offered  of  the  absolute  community 
of  interest  between  banks,  railroads,  and  all  the 
great  industries. 

There  are  twenty-three  directors  of  the  Na 
tional  City  Bank  (Standard  Oil).  There  are 
forty  directors  of  the  National  Bank  of  Com 
merce  (Morgan).  Examination  of  these  direc 
torates  shows  that  the  two  groups  are  being  knit 
together  in  business  associations,  suggesting 
their  ultimate  unification. 

Subject  to  personal  differences  which  may  arise 
between  powerful  individuals  of  these  different 
groups,  resulting  in  occasional  collision,  they 
are  practically  a  monopoly,  and  as  far  as  the 
public  is  concerned,  practically  one  group.  The 
business  partner  of  the  head  of  the  Morgan  group 
is  found  on  the  directorate  of  the  chief  financial 
institution  which  heads  the  Standard  Oil  group. 
And  one  of  the  leading  directors  of  the  National 
City  Bank  (Standard  Oil)  is  a  member  of  the 
board  of  directors  of  the  principal  financial  in 
stitution  in  the  Morgan  group.  The  directors 
of  the  leading  organizations  comprising  the  two 
principal  groups  are  bound  together  in  mutual 
interest  as  shareholders  in  the  various  transpor 
tation  franchise,  and  industrial  concerns  which 
have  been  financed  by  one  or  the  other  of  the 
group  in  recent  years. 

Fourteen  of  the  directors  of  the  National  City 


APPENDIX  783 

Bank  are  at  the  head  of  fourteen  great  combina 
tions  representing  38  per  cent,  of  the  capitaliza 
tion  of  all  the  industrial  trusts  of  the  country. 

The  railroad  lines  represented  on  the  board 
of  this  one  bank  cover  the  country  like  a  network. 
Chief  among  them  are  the  Lackawanna,  the 
Chicago,  Burlington  and  Quincy,  the  Union 
Pacific,  the  Alton,  the  Missouri  Pacific,  the 
Chicago,  Milwaukee  and  St.  Paul,  the  Chicago 
and  Northwestern,  the  Rock  Island,  the  Denver 
and  Rio  Grande,  the  Mexican  National,  the 
Baltimore  and  Ohio,  the  Northern  Pacific,  the 
New  York  Central,  the  Texas  and  Pacific,  the 
Erie,  the  New  York,  New  Haven  and  Hartford, 
the  Delaware  and  Hudson,  the  Illinois  Central, 
the  Manhattan  Elevated  of  New  York  City,  and 
the  rapid-transit  lines  of  Brooklyn.  These 
same  twenty-three  directors,  through  their  vari 
ous  connections,  represent  more  than  350  other 
banks,  trust  companies,  railroads,  and  industrial 
corporations,  with  an  aggregate  capitalization 
of  more  than  twelve  thousand  million  dollars. 

That  is  a  part  only  of  what  is  behind  the  direc 
torate  of  the  National  City  Bank  of  New  York, 
the  head  of  only  one  of  these  groups. 

The  twenty-three  directors  of  the  National 
City  Bank,  the  head  of  the  Standard  Oil  group, 
and  the  directors  of  the  National  Bank  of  Com- 
nerce,  forty  in  number,  hold  1,007  directorships 
on  the  great  transportation,  industrial,  and  com 
mercial  institutions  of  this  country. 

The  ability  of  these  group  banks  of  New  York 


784  APPENDIX 

through  their  connected  interests  to  engage  in 
underwriting,  to  finance  promotion  schemes, 
where  the  profits  resulting  from  overcapitaliza 
tion  represent  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars, 
places  them  beyond  let  or  hindrance  from  com 
petitors  elsewhere  in  the  country.  Their  ability 
to  take  advantage  of  conditions  in  Wall  Street, 
even  if  they  did  not  create  these  conditions,  forc 
ing  interest  rates  on  call  loans  as  high  as  150 
per  cent. ,  would  enable  them  to  command,  almost 
at  will,  the  capital  of  the  country  for  these  specu 
lative  purposes. 

But  one  result  could  follow.  Floating  the 
stocks  and  bonds  in  overcapitalized  transpor 
tation,  traction,  mining  and  industrial  organi 
zations  does  not  create  wealth,  but  it  does 
absorb  capital.  Through  the  agency  of  these 
great  groups  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  of 
the  wealth  of  the  country  have  been  tied  up. 
Other  hundreds  of  millions  have  been  drawn 
upon  to  supply  these  great  speculating  groups 
in  their  steadily  increasing  Wall  Street  business. 

I  would  not  unjustly  decry  Wall  Street  or  " 
ignore  the  necessity  of  a  great  central  market 
to  provide  capital  for  the  large  business  under 
takings  of  this  country.  I  recognize  the  rights 
of  capital  and  the  service  which  capital  can  ren 
der  to  a  great  producing  nation  such  as  ours.  But 
this  government  guarantees  equality  of  oppor 
tunity  for  all  men,  and  it  likewise  guarantees 
equality  of  opportunity  for  all  capital.  And  cor 
porations  and  combinations  of  corporations, 


APPENDIX  785 

with  their  centralized  banking  and  extending 
branch  connections  from  state  to  state,  are  not 
entitled  to  special  favors  in  legislation. 

The  whole  course  of  banking  and  currency 
legislation  has  steadily  favored  the  great  bank 
ing  institutions,  especially  those  having  com 
munity  of  interest  with  the  industrial  and 
transportation  companies  of  the  country. 

The  committees  of  Congress  controlling  this 
legislation  are  chargeable  with  this  neglect  of 
public  interest.  Since  the  enactment  of  the 
National  Banking  Law,  with  each  recurring 
Congress  the  Comptroller  of  the  Currency  has 
recommended  legislation  needful  for  the  better 
protection  of  the  depositors  and  the  commercial 
interests  generally,  as  against  the  speculative 
interests  of  Wall  Street.  These  recommenda 
tions  have  been  uniformly  ignored.  In  proof 
of  this,  I  cite  an  extract  from  a  public  statement 
of  Deputy  Comptroller  of  the  Currency  Kane, 
issued  March  31,  1908,  as  follows: 

"While  numerous  have  been  the  recommendations  of 
the  eleven  comptrollers  who  have  presided  over  the  affairs 
of  the  Currency  Bureau  since  its  establishment,  which, 
in  the  judgment  of  each,  would  have  increased  the  security 
of  the  depositors  and  creditors  of  the  banks,  practically 
none  has  been  enacted  into  law  or  has  received  the  serious 
consideration  of  the  legislative  branch  of  the  government. 
No  one  has  had  better  opportunities  to  observe  from  an 
impartial  and  disinterested  standpoint  the  practical 
operations  of  the  banking  laws  and  to  note  their  weak 
features  in  regard  to  the  security  of  creditors  than  the 
respective  Comptrollers  of  the  Currency.  Notwith- 


786  APPENDIX 

standing  the  many  recommendations  made  by  the  several 
comptrollers,  there  has  been  practically  no  amendment  of 
the  law  since  the  passage  of  the  original  bank  act  of  Feb 
ruary  25,  1863,  which  can  be  said  to  have  had  for  its 
object  the  particular  welfare  of  the  depositor. 

"  Of  the  fifty -four  acts  amendatory  of  the  original  enact 
ment  which  have  been  adopted  since  that  date,  practically 
all  have  been  in  the  interest  of  greater  latitude  or  privileges 
to  the  banks. 


"The  responsibility  should  rest  where  it  properly  belongs 
—  upon  the  law  and  the  lawmakers,  and  not  upon  the 
administrative  officials." 

This  is  but  the  barest  outline  of  the  upbuilding 
of  the  power  which  now  controls. 

Is  there  a  way  out?     Let  us  consider. 

By  its  decisions  in  the  Standard  Oil  and 
Tobacco  cases  the  Supreme  Court  has  all  at  once 
created  itself  into  a  legislature,  an  interstate 
commerce  commission  and  a  supreme  court, 
combined  in  one. 

The  "  rule  of  reason"  gives  it  legislative  power, 
the  power  to  determine  according  to  its  own 
opinion  that  some  restraints  of  trade  are  lawful 
and  other  restraints  unlawful.  The  power  to 
carry  out  the  dissolution  and  reorganization  of 
the  trusts  and  to  work  out  the  details  is  exactly 
the  power  that  a  legislature  turns  over  to  a  com 
mission.  Punishment  for  contempt  is  the  court's 
substitute  for  the  criminal  penalty  that  the  legis 
lature  attaches  to  the  violation  of  its  statutes. 

The   supreme  court  has  amended   the  anti- 


APPENDIX  787 

trust  act  in  exactly  the  way  that  Congress 
repeatedly  refused  to  amend  it,  and  has  usurped 
both  legislative  and  executive  power  in  doing  it. 
Whether  we  wish  it  or  not,  Congress  is  now  com 
pelled  to  create  an  interstate  trade  commission 
to  control  the  trusts,  or  else  leave  the  control  to 
the  federal  courts,  acting  as  a  commission. 

Such  a  commission  should  not  fix  prices. 
Price  regulation  assumes  that  we  are  dealing 
with  a  necessary  monopoly,  as  in  the  case  of 
railroads  and  public  utilities.  But  the  commer 
cial  monopolies  are  based  on  unfair  and  dis 
criminatory  practices  and  special  privileges. 
These  can  be  abolished  in  several  ways. 

Amend  the  Sherman  law  by  enacting  specific 
prohibitions  against  well-known  practices  that 
constitute  unreasonable  restraints  of  trade. 
One  of  these  is  the  brutal  method  of  the  Stand 
ard  Oil  Company  of  cutting  prices  in  any  place 
where  there  is  a  competitor  in  order  to  kill  him 
off,  while  keeping  up  prices  in  other  places. 
Another  is  the  club  wielded  by  the  tobacco 
trust,  which  put  the  jobbers  in  a  position  where, 
unless  they  refrained  from  buying  of  a  com 
petitor,  they  could  not  get  from  the  trust  the 
brands  which  were  indispensable  to  the  success 
ful  conduct  of  their  business.  These  and  several 
other  obviously  unreasonable  restraints  of  trade 
are  definitely  prohibited  in  the  bill  which  I  have 
introduced  in  the  Senate. 

The  bill  also  places  the  burden  of  proof  on  the 
trust  to  show  that  any  restraint  of  trade  which 


788  APPENDIX 

it  practises  is  reasonable  --  that  is,  that  it  bene 
fits  the  community. 

It  also  provides  that  when  the  court  has  once 
entered  its  final  decree  and  declared  a  trust 
illegal,  any  person  who  has  suffered  damages, 
may  come  in  under  that  decree  and  simply 
petition  that  his  damages  be  paid  without  prov 
ing  anything  except  the  amount  of  the  damages. 
If  this  had  been  law  when  the  Standard  Oil 
and  Tobacco  decisions  were  rendered,  those 
decisions  would  have  meant  something  more 
than  mere  victories  on  paper. 

In  addition  to  these  amendments  to  the  anti 
trust  law,  there  is  need  of  a  commission  to  stand 
between  the  people  and  the  courts  in  order  to 
investigate  the  facts  and  to  prohibit  all  unrea 
sonable  restraints  not  specifically  described  in  the 
law.  This  commission  should  have  full  power 
to  ascertain  the  actual  cost  of  reproduction,  or 
physical  value  of  the  property;  the  reasonable 
value  that  the  intangible  property,  such  as  good 
will,  would  have  under  conditions  of  fair  com 
petition,  and  to  distinguish  this  from  the  illegal 
values  that  have  been  built  up  in  violation  of 
law.  It  should  ascertain  the  values  that  de 
pend  on  patents,  monopoly  of  natural  resources 
and  all  other  forms  of  special  privilege;  the 
amount  of  property  that  has  been  paid  for  out 
of  illegal  profits  taken  from  the  public,  distin 
guished  from  the  property  paid  for  out  of  legiti 
mate  profits  and  true  investment.  It  should 
in  this  way  ascertain  the  true  cost  of  production 


, 


APPENDIX  789 

and  whether  the  prices  charged  are  yielding  extor 
tionate  profits  or  only  the  reasonable  profits 
that  competitors  could  earn.  These  are  the 
facts  that  the  people  must  know  before  they  will 
consent  to  any  legislation  that  treats  illegal 
values  as  though  they  were  legal. 

With  these  facts  ascertained  and  made  prima 
facie  evidence  in  court,  these  illegal  values  can 
not  be  permanently  fastened  on  the  American 
people.  It  will  take  time  to  pull  down  this  false 
structure  of  illegal  capitalization  of  the  trusts, 
but  it  is  now  the  greatest  menace  to  prosperity. 

If  these  laws  are  adopted,  then  every  business 
man,  as  well  as  the  courts,  will  know  definitely 
what  is  meant  by  the  "rule  of  reason."  Legiti 
mate  business  will  have  its  course  laid  out  clear 
and  certain  before  it,  and  every  investor  will 
know  precisely  what  the  law  allows  and  what  it 
prohibits. 

The  trust  problem  has  become  so  interwoven 
in  our  legal  and  industrial  system  that  no  single 
measure  or  group  of  measures  can  reach  all  of  it. 
It  must  be  picked  off  at  every  point  where  it 
shows  its  head. 

Every  combination  of  a  manufacturing  busi 
ness  with  the  control  of  transportation,  includ 
ing  pipe  lines,  should  be  prohibited,  in  order 
that  competitors  may  have  equal  facilities  for 
reaching  markets. 

The  control  of  limited  sources  of  raw  material, 
like  coal,  iron  ore,  or  timber,  by  a  manufacturing 
corporation,  should  be  broken  up  and  these 


790  APPENDIX 

resources  should  be  opened  to  all  manufacturers 
on  equal  terms. 

It  is  claimed  on  all  sides  that  competition  has 
failed.  I  deny  it.  Fair  competition  has  not 
failed.  It  has  been  suppressed.  When  com 
petitors  are  shut  out  from  markets  by  discrimi 
nation,  and  denied  either  transportation,  raw 
material  or  credit  on  equal  terms,  we  do  not 
have  competition.  We  have  the  modern  form 
of  highway  robbery.  The  great  problem  of 
legislation  before  us  is  first  for  the  people  to 
resume  control  of  their  government,  and  then  to 
protect  themselves  against  those  who  are  throt 
tling  competition  by  the  aid  of  government. 

I  do  not  say  that  competition  does  not  have 
its  evils.  Labor  organizations  are  the  strug 
gling  protest  against  cut-throat  competition. 
The  anti-trust  law  was  not  intended  or  under 
stood  to  apply  to  them.  They  should  be 
exempt  from  its  operation. 

The  tariff  should  be  brought  down  to  the  dif 
ference  in  labor  cost  of  the  more  efficient  plants 
and  the  foreign  competitor,  and  where  there  is 
no  difference  the  tariff  should  be  removed. 
Where  the  protective  tariff  is  retained  its  advan 
tages  must  be  passed  along  to  labor,  for  whose 
benefit  the  manufacturer  contends  it  is  necessary. 

The  patent  laws  should  be  so  amended  that 
the  owners  of  patents  will  be  compelled  to  de 
velop  them  fully  or  permit  their  use  on  equal 
terms  by  others. 

More   vital   and   menacing   than   any   other 


APPENDIX  791 

power  that  supports  trusts  is  the  control  of 
credit  through  the  control  of  the  people's  savings 
and  deposits.  When  the  Emergency  Currency 
Bill  was  before  Congress  in  1908,  Senator  Aid- 
rich  slipped  into  the  conference  report  certain 
provisions  which  he  had  withdrawn  in  the 
Senate,  and  withdrew  provision's  which  he  had 
first  included.  He  eliminated  protection  against 
promotion  schemes,  excluded  penalties  for  false 
reporting,  dropped  provisions  for  safeguarding 
reserves,  inserted  provisions  for  accepting  rail 
road  bonds  as  security.  Now  he  comes  with 
another  plausible  measure  to  remedy  the  ad 
mitted  evils  of  our  inelastic  banking  system. 

When  we  realize  that  the  control  of  credit  and 
banking  is  the  greatest  power  that  the  trusts 
possess  to  keep  out  competitors,  we  may  well 
question  their  sincerity  in  offering  a  patriotic 
measure  to  dispossess  themselves  of  that  power. 
It  is  the  people's  money  that  is  expected  to  give 
security  to  this  plan  and  the  people  must  and 


The  proposed  Aldrich  Currency  plan  is  the 
product  of  a  commission  composed  of  men  who 
are  or  have  been  members  of  the  committees 
of  the  two  houses  of  Congress,  which  have  con 
trolled  all  legislation  relating  to  currency  and 
banking.  With  such  a  record  it  behooves  the 
public  to  examine  with  the  utmost  care  any  plan 
which  they  recommend,  however  plausible  it 
may  appear  upon  its  face.  A  critical  study  of 
the  scheme  of  this  commission  will  convince 


792  APPENDIX 

any  student  of  government  finance,  that  under 
the  guise  of  providing  elasticity  to  our  currency 
system,  it  is  in  reality  an  adroit  means  of  further 
concentration  and  control  of  the  money  and 
credits  of  the  United  States  under  a  fifty-year 
franchise,  augmenting  the  power  of  those  who 
already  dominate  the  banking  and  insurance 
resources  of  the  country. 

Our  National  Banking  Law  is  a  patchwork  of 
legislation.  It  should  be  thoroughly  revised. 
And  all  authorities  agree  that  a  comprehensive 
plan  for  an  emergency  currency  is  vitally  im 
portant.  When  the  basic  principle  of  such  a 
plan  is  once  determined,  when  it  is  settled  that 
government  controlled  banks  are  to  be,  in  fact, 
controlled  by  the  government  in  the  public 
interest,  the  details  can  easily  be  worked  out. 

An  emergency  currency  circulation  should  be 
backed  by  proper  reserves,  issued  only  against 
commercial  paper  that  represents  actual  and 
legitimate  business  transactions.  No  plan 
should  be  adopted  which  admits  of  control  by 
banking  interests  which,  under  existing  condi 
tions,  means,  in  the  end,  control  by  the  great 
speculative  banking  groups. 
Am  all  our  plans  for  progressive  legislation, 
it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  we  are  only  just 
beginning  to  get  control  of  the  railroads.  The 
present  law  is  an  improvement,  but  the  Inter 
state  Commerce  Commission  requires  to  be 
greatly  strengthened.  It  should  have  a  much 
larger  appropriation,  enabling  it  to  prosecute 


APPENDIX  793 

investigations  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  It 
should  make  physical  valuations  of  the  rail 
roads,  eliminating  watered  stock,  monopoly 
values  and  the  unwarranted  inflation  of  railway 
terminals  to  conceal  monopoly  values.  And 
the  Commerce  Court  should  be  abolished  as  a 
mere  subterfuge  interposed  to  handicap  the 
commission. 

As  a  first  necessary  step  for  the  regulation  of 
interstate  commerce,  we  must  ascertain  the 
reasonable  value  of  the  physical  property  of 
railroads,  justly  inventoried,  upon  a  sound 
economic  basis,  distinguishing  actual  values 
from  monopoly  values  derived  from  violations  of 
law,  and  must  make  such  discriminating  values 
the  base  line  for  determining  rates.  The  coun 
try  should  know  how  much  of  the  eighteen  bil 
lions  of  capitalization  was  contributed  by  those 
who  own  the  railroads,  and  how  much  by  the 
people  themselves.  We  should  also  provide 
for  the  extension  of  the  powers  and  the  adminis 
trative  control  of  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission. 

A  word  to  the  Magazines. — I  have  sketched  the 
growth  and  power  of  the  great  interests  that  to 
day  control  our  property  and  our  governments. 
I  have  shown  how  subtle  and  elusive,  yet  relent 
less,  they  are.  Rising  up  against  them  is  the 
confused  voice  of  the  people.  Their  heart  is 
true  but  their  eyes  do  not  yet  see  all  the  intri 
cate  sources  of  power.  Who  shall  show  them? 
There  are  only  two  agencies  that  in  any  way  can 


794  APPENDIX 

reach  the  whole  people.  These  are  the  press 
and  the  platform.  But  the  platform  in  no  way 
compares  with  the  press  in  its  power  of  continu 
ous  repeated  instruction. 

One  would  think  that  in  a  democracy  like 
ours,  people  seeking  the  truth,  able  to  read  and 
understand,  would  find  the  press  their  eager  and 
willing  instructors.  Such  was  the  press  of 
Horace  Greeley,  Henry  Raymond,  Charles  A. 
Dana,  Joseph  Medill,  and  Horace  Rublee. 

But  what  do  we  find  has  occurred  in  the  past 
few  years  since  the  money  power  has  gained  con 
trol  of  our  industry  and  government?  It  con 
trols  the  newspaper  press.  The  people  know 
this.  Their  confidence  is  weakened  and  de 
stroyed.  No  longer  are  the  editorial  columns  of 
newspapers  a  potent  force  in  educating  public 
opinion.  The  newspapers,  of  course,  are  still 
patronized  for  news.  But  even  as  to  news,  the 
public  is  fast  coming  to  understand  that  wherever 
news  items  bear  in  any  way  upon  the  control  of 
government  by  business,  the  news  is  colored; 
so  confidence  in  the  newspaper  as  a  newspaper 
is  being  undermined. 

Cultured  and  able  men  are  still  to  be  found 
upon  the  editorial  staffs  of  all  great  dailies,  but 
the  public  understands  them  to  be  hired  men 
who  no  longer  express  honest  judgments  and 
sincere  conviction,  who  write  what  they  are 
told  to  write,  and  whose  judgments  are  salaried. 

To  the  subserviency  of  the  press  to  special 
interests  in  no  small  degree  is  due  the  power  arid 


APPENDIX  795 

influence  and  prosperity  of  the  weekly  and 
monthly  magazines.  A  decade  ago  young  men 
trained  in  journalism  came  to  see  this  control 
of  the  newspapers  of  the  country.  They  saw 
also  an  unoccupied  field.  And  they  went  out 
and  built  up  great  periodicals  and  magazines. 
They  were  free. 

Their  pages  were  open  to  publicists  and  schol 
ars  and  liberty,  and  justice  and  equal  rights 
found  a  free  press  beyond  the  reach  of  the  cor 
rupt  influence  of  consolidated  business  and 
machine  politics.  We  entered  upon  a  new  era. 

The  periodical,  reduced  in  price,  attractive 
and  artistic  in  dress,  strode  like  a  young  giant 
into  the  arena  of  public  service.  Filled  with 
this  spirit,  quickened  with  human  interest,  it 
assailed  social  and  political  evils  in  high  places 
and  low.  It  found  the  power  of  the  public  ser 
vice  corporation  and  the  evil  influences  of  money 
in  the  municipal  government  of  every  large  city. 
It  found  franchises  worth  millions  of  dollars 
secured  by  bribery;  police  in  partnership  with 
thieves  and  crooks  and  prostitutes.  It  found 
juries  "fixed"  and  an  established  business  ply 
ing  its  trade  between  litigants  and  the  back 
door  of  blinking  justice. 

It  found  Philadelphia  giving  away  franchises, 
franchises  not  supposedly  or  estimated  to  be 
worth  $2,500,000,  but  for  which  she  had  been 
openly  offered  and  refused  $2,500,000.  Mil 
waukee  they  found  giving  away  street -car 
franchises  worth  $8,000,000  against  the  protests 


796  APPENDIX 

of  her  indignant  citizens.  It  found  Chicago 
robbed  in  tax-payments  of  immense  value  by 
corporate  owners  of  property  through  fraud  and 
forgery  on  a  gigantic  scale;  it  found  the  alder 
men  of  St.  Louis,  organized  to  boodle  the  city 
with  a  criminal  compact,  on  file  in  the  dark  cor 
ner  of  a  safety  deposit  vault. 

The  free  and  independent  periodical  turned 
her  searchlight  on  state  legislatures,  and  made 
plain  as  the  sun  at  noonday  the  absolute  control 
of  the  corrupt  lobby.  She  opened  the  closed 
doors  of  the  secret  caucus,  the  secret  committee, 
the  secret  conference,  behind  which  United 
States  Senators  and  Members  of  Congress  be 
trayed  the  public  interest  into  the  hands  of  rail 
roads,  the  trusts,  the  tariff  mongers,  and  the 
centralized  banking  power  of  the  country.  She 
revealed  the  same  influences  back  of  judicial 
and  other  appointments.  She  took  the  public 
through  the  great  steel  plants  and  into  the  homes 
of  the  men  who  toil  twelve  hours  a  day  and  seven 
days  in  the  week.  And  the  public  heard  their 
cry  of  despair.  She  turned  her  camera  into 
the  mills  and  shops  where  little  children  are 
robbed  of  every  chance  of  life  that  nourishes  vig 
orous  bodies  and  sound  minds,  and  the  pinched 
faces  and  dwarfed  figures  told  their  pathetic 
story  on  her  clean  white  pages. 

The  control  of  the  newspaper  press  is  not  the 

simple  and  expensive  one  of  ownership  and  in- 

|  vestment.     There  is   here   and  there   a   "kept 

\^sheet"  owned  by  a  man  of  great  wealth  to  further 


APPENDIX  797 

his  own  interests.  But  the  papers  of  this  class 
are  few.  The  control  comes  through  that  com 
munity  of  interests,  that  interdependence  of 
investments  and  credits  which  ties  the  publisher 
up  to  the  banks,  the  advertisers  and  the  special 
interests. 

We  may  expect  this  same  kind  of  control, 
'sooner  or  later,  to  reach  out  for  the  magazines. 
But  more  than  this:     I  warn  you  of  a  subtle 
new  peril,  the  centralization  of  advertising,  that 
will  in  time  seek  to  gag  you.     What  has  oc 
curred  on  the  small  scale  in  almost  every  city  in  the 
country  will  extend  to  the  national  scale,  and 
will  ere  long  close  in  on  the  magazines.     No 
men  ever  faced  graver  responsibilities.     None 
have  ever  been  called  to  a  more  unselfish,  pa-    J 
triotic  service.     I  believe  that  when  the  final  ( 
test  comes,  you  will  not  be  found  wanting;  you  I 
will  not  desert  and  leave  the  people  to  depend  \ 
upon  the  public  platform  alone,  but  you  will  /    . 
hold  aloft  the  lamp  of  Truth,  lighting  the  way  for  I  Jf 
the  preservation  of  representative  government/  \; 
and  the  liberty  of  the  American  people.        „    j 


INDEX 


Adams,  J.  Q.,  121 

Agriculture,   Department   of,    116 

Aldrich,     Nelson,     B.,     77,     104, 

431-3,  441-2,  445-6,  453,  458, 

462,  466-7,  471,  475,  477,  484, 

547,  692,  695,  711,  713 
Aldrich-Vreeland    Currency    Bill, 

458-75 

Allen,  Henry,  J.,  660 
Allison,     William     B.,     52,     431, 

433-4 
American   Association  of  Woolen 

and     Worsted     Manufacturers, 

107 

Anti-Pass  Law,  211-15 
Appropriation     Bills    in    Senate, 

392-3,    396 

Arthur,  Chester  A.,  51-2 
Atkins,  J.  D.  C.,  59 

Babcock,  226-32,    306,    320,  323, 

327-29,  734-39 
Baensch,  Emil,  327 
Baker,  Alfred,  526 
Bailey,  Joseph  W.,  299,  300 
Ballinger,   Richard  A.,  458,    477, 

632 

Banks,  Wisconsin  State,  366 
Barnes,  John,  349-50 
Bascom,  John,  26-8,  31 
Bashford,  R.  M.,  4,  141 
Bass,  J.  F.,  621 
Bayne,  Thomas  M.,  98 
Beck,    Joseph,    311 
Beef  Trust,  The,  74,  640,  698 
Bennett  Law,  134 
Betz,  Henry,  140 
Beveridge,   Albert  J.,  427-8,  447, 

451-2 


Bigelow,  Frank,  188 

Elaine,  James  G.,  51,  91,  103,  110, 

111,   112,  708 
Bliss,  Cornelius  N.,  721 
Borah,    William,    394,    428,    467, 

521 
Bourne,      Jonathan,      428,      467, 

494,  498,  516,  528,  587 
Braddock,  W.  S.,  341 
Brandeis,  Louis,  D.,  597,  729 
Breckenridge,  Clifton  R.,  98 
Brickner,  G.  H.,  148 
Bristow,   Joseph  L.,    131-3,   428, 

444,  447,  451-2,  494,  520,  578-9 
Brown,  Norris,  447,  467 
Brown,    Walter,    574,    576,    583, 

585-6,   591 
Bryant,  George  E.,  47-8,  162,  180, 

192 

Bryan,  William  J.,  343-8,  371,  751 
Bryce,  James,  87 
Bunn,  Romanzo,  149-50 
Burgess,  Charles  T.,  316 
Bureau  of  Labor,  116 
Burkett,  Elmer  J.,  417,  447 
Burrows,  Julius  C.,  98,  373 
Butterworth,    Benjamin,   52,    101 

Call,  Joseph  H.,  724-5 
Campaign  of  1904,  319-40 
Cannon,  Joseph  G.,  52,  437,  458, 

477,    484,    547,    695,    711,    713, 

714,  735,  739 
Cary,  W.  J.,  454,  521 
Carlisle,  John  G.,  51-2,  56-7,  65, 

93-5,  98-100,   109 
Carnegie  Hall,  588,  594 
Carter,   Thomas  H.,   455 
Casson,   Henry,   228 


799 


800 


INDEX 


Caucus— Senatorial,  299,  301,  303 
Central  Pacific  Ry.  Co.,    725-6 
Chandler,  William  E.,  372 
Chandler,  Zachary,  16 
Chautauqua,  The,  304-5,  340,  346, 

348,  418 
Cherokee  Strip  in  U.  S.  Senate, 

374 
Chicago  &  Northwestern  Ry.  Co., 

71-2,  284 
Chicago,   Milwaukee   &  St.   Paul 

Ry.  Co.,  71-4,  284 
Chynoweth,  Herbert  W.,  29,  180, 

328 

Civil  Service  Law,  365 
Clapp,    Moses,   405,    423,   427-8, 

436,  447,  451-2,  516 
Clay,  Henry  C.,  103 
Clark,  Charles  B.,  144 
Cleveland,  Grover,  52-3,  55,  91 
Coal  Trust,   117 
Cochems,  Henry,  647,  653-5 
Committees   of   Congress,    302-3, 

375-6,  397 
Commons,    John    R.,    31-2,    311, 

558 

Commoner,  The,  345-6 
Commerce  Court,  The,  Bill,  420, 

423-4 
Conference  Committees,  Publicity 

urged,  299-301 
Connor,  W.  D.,  327 
Conservation,  380-90,  481-2 
Convention  of  1904,  322-7 
Corrupt  Practices  Act,  297 
Cortelyou,     George     B.,     720-1, 

738-9 

Cowan,  S.  H.,  341 
Crane,  Charles  R.,  495,  516,  526, 

590,  595,  602,  741 
Crawford,  Coe  I.,  447,  520 
Crownhart,  Charles,  310 
Culberson,  David  B.,  688 
Cummins,  A.   B.,  394,  423,  428, 

431-2,  444,  447,  451-2,   516-8, 

523-4,    527-8,    587,    614,    648, 

659,  660 
Cunningham  Claims,  477 


Dahl,  A.  H.,  341 
Dana,  Charles  A.,  250,  604 
Davison,  H.  P.,  636 
Davidson,  James  O.,  214 
Democracy,  25-6,  64-9,  178,  195. 

204-7,  222,  275-6,  302-4,  317 
Deneen,  Charles  S.,  637 
Department  of  Agriculture,  116 
Depew,  Chauncey,  720-2 
Dingley  Law,  The,  106,  450,  707, 

712 

Dingley,  Nelson,  98 
Dixon,  Charles,  19 
Dixon,  Joseph  M.,  394,  428,  667 
Dolliver,  Jonathan  P.,  405,  413, 

415,  417,  426,  427-36,  443,  447, 

451-2 

Drew,  Walter,  322 
Dryden,  John  F.,  418 
Dudley,  William  W.,  78-9 
Durand,  E.  Dana,  455 

Edmunds,  G.  F.,  52,  688 
Edmunds,  E.  A.,  453-4,  560 
Ekern,  H.  L.,  341,  364-5 
Eleventh  Story  League,  279 
Elevator  Trust,  The,  698 
Eliot,  Charles,  32 
Elkins  Law,  404 
Elward,  Rodney,  A.,  579 
Ely,  Richard  T.,  29-32 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  26 
Emery,  Henry  C.,  106-7 
Emergency    Currency    Bill,    430, 

458-75,  480 

Employers'   Liability   Bill,   425-6 
Erickson,  Halford,  284,  322,  350 
Evans,  Henry  Clay,   122-4 
Evans,  Elizabeth  G.,  643 
Evarts,  William  M.,  52 

Fackler,  John  D.,  558,  560,  574, 

583-6,  589 

Fairbanks,  Charles  W.,  373 
Fink,  Henry,  256 
Flower,  Roswell  P.,  98 
Forest  Reserve  of  Wisconsin,  364 
Frear,  James  A.,  341 


INDEX 


801 


French,  Asa  P.,  728 
Prick,  Henry,  676,  718 
Frisby,  Almah  J.,  316 
Frye,  William  P.,  397 
Fuller,  William  E.,  100 
Fuller,  Hugh,  425 

Gallinger,  Jacob  H.,  391 

Gamble,  Robert  J.,  417 

Gardner,  Gilson,  487,  503,  508-9, 

512-16,  519,  534-7,  540-2,  545, 

550-3,  590,  597,  600,  602,  611, 

630-2 
Garfield,   James   R.,   508,   533-4, 

546,  574,  576,  633 
Garfield,  James  A.,  16-17,  560 
Gary,  E.  H.,  636,  693,  718 
Gear,  John  H.,  98,  102 
George,  Henry,  19 
Gill,  Thomas,  233-7 
Glasscock,  W.  E.,  655 
Gore,  Thomas  P.,  469,  473-4 
Gorman,  A.  P.,  77 
Gould,  George  Jay,  718 
Grangers,    The,    18-20,    23,    238, 

400 

Greeley,  Horace,  250,  604 
Greenback  Party,  18 
Gregory,  Charles  Noble,  200 
Gronna,   A.   J.,   516 
Guenther,    Richard,    59-60,     140 

Hadley,  Herbert  S.,  655,  663-4 
Hagemeister  Bill,  267-9,  271,  273, 

274 

Halbert,  Hugh  T.,  613 
Hale,    Eugene,    374,    391-4,    455, 

471-3 
Hall,  A.  R.,  212-15,  217,  230,  237- 

240,  281 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  103 
Hanna,    Mark,    128-9,    131,    133, 

537,  734 
Hanna,  Daniel,  537-8,  583,  585-6, 

591 

Hannan,     John     J.,     590,     597, 
.  648-9 


Harper,  Samuel  A.,    42-4,    46-7, 

142,    144,    154-6,     161-2,     168, 

180,  192,  198,  212,  219 
Harper,  William  R.,  196 
Harrison,  Frank  A.,  643 
Harrison,    Benjamin,    91,    166-7, 

170,  173 

Harriman,  E.  H.,  676,  718-26 
Harshaw,    Henry    B.,    140,    143, 

154-7 
Harvester  Trust,  The,  582,   640, 

695 

Hatten,  William,  296,  341 
Haugen,      Nils      P.,     75,     77-9, 

176-85,  190,  208,  213,  240 
Haugen,  G.  N.,  520 
Hazel  ton,  George  C.,  44 
Hazzard,  William,  323 
Helgesen,  Henry  T.,  520 
Henderson,  David  B.,  169 
Heney,  Francis  J.,  591-2,  655 
Henley,  W.  E.,  194 
Hepburn  Bill,  The,   399,  405-20, 

460,  480,  678-80,  714 
Hill,  James,  718 
Hoar,  George  F.,  52,  688 
Hoard,   William  D.,   22,    129-30, 

141-2,  170,  190,  230-1 
Holman,  W.  S.,  52 
Homestead  Strike,  109 
Hopkins,  A.  J.,  373 
Honduran  Treaty,  301 
Hours  of  Railway  Service,  426 
Houser,  \Valter,  514-15, 530,  532-3, 

539,    542,    550,    555-6,    558-9, 

585,  587,  590,  592,  597-601,  651 

653,  655 

Howe,  Frederic  C.,  485 
Hubbard,  E.  H.,  516 
Hughes,    Charles,    364,    659-60 
Hughitt,  Marvin,  230-2 
Hull,  J.  A.  T.,  737 

Income  Tax,  289 
Indian  Affairs,  71-3,  376-8,  383 
Industrial  Commission  of  Wiscon 
sin,  309-11 
Ingalls,  John  J.,  52 


802 


INDEX 


Ingersoll,  Robert  G.,  33-6 
Ingram,  Charles,  749 
Inheritance  Tax,  289 
Insurance  Legislation,  364-5 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission, 

118,  126,  402-3,  456,  480,  725 
Interstate     Commerce     Act,     90, 

118,   127,  399,   400,  456 
Internal  Revenue  Taxation,  120-1 

Jackson,  Ida  M.,  316 
Johnson,  Hiram,  572,  642,  655 
Jones,  Burr  W.,  44 
Jones,  Clyde,  516-17 

Kean,  John,  411-12 

Kent,    William,    514,    520,    526, 

550-1,  553,  590,  596-7,   602 
Keyes,    E.  W.,   9-11,    24-5,    38, 

44-6,  63,  127,  210 
Kirby,  F.  M.,  631-2 
Kuehn,   Ferdinand,    140-1 
Kull,  Fred,  323 
Knox,  P.  C.,  299-300 

La  Follette,  Robert  Marion 

In  the  University,  4,  6-8,  11-12, 

26 

Early  Life,  6 
Campaign  for  district  attorney, 

3-5,  8-14 
District      attorney      of      Dane 

County,   14,  36-42,  48,  63 
Early  influences,  19,  22-7,  33-6, 

43,  49-50,  52,  67,  71,  99 

Campaigns  for  Congress,  42-8, 
70 

In  Congress  from  1885-1891 

First    visit    to    Washington, 

49-56 

The  Tariff,   99-102 
Committee     on     Ways     and 

Means,  102 
Indian  lands,  57-60 
River  and  Harbors  bill,  60-3 


The  Railroads,  71-6 

The   Nicaraguan   Canal   bill, 

78-80 

The  Ship  Subsidy  bill,  80-3 
Oleomargarine  bill,   120-2 
Reports  to  constituents,  63-7 

Struggle    with    the    Bosses    in 
Wisconsin,  1891  to  1900 

The    Machine,    160-2,     165, 

170-5 

The  Sawyer  affair,  138-65 
The  campaigns  of  1894,  1896, 

and  1898,     176-224 
The  Campaign  of  1900,  225- 

41 
Offered   the   Comptrollership 

of  the  Treasury,  114-5 

As  Governor  of  Wisconsin  from 
1901  to  1905 

Primary  election  law,  243-9, 

256,  292-7 
Railroad    regulation,     271-4, 

282-7,  290-2,  341-5,  348-63 
Railroad  taxation,  243-68 
Anti-lobby  law,  297-8 
Regulation    of    state    banks, 

366-7 

Inheritance  tax  law,  289 
Income  tax  law,  289 
Conservation  measures,  363-4 
Insurance  laws,  364-5 
Civil  Service  law,  365-6 
Policy  as  to  women  in  public 

service,  315-8 
Campaign  of  1904,  320-40 

Chautauqua   Addresses,   304-5, 
418 

In  the  Senate 

Election,   162-3,  370,   373-4, 

411-12 
The  Navy  Yards,  391-6 


INDEX 


Regulation  of  railroad  com 
panies,  406-24 

Physical  Valuation  of  rail 
ways,  456-7,  460-2 

Employers'  Liability  bill,  425 

Indian  lands,  377-9 

Coal  lands,  377,  383,  386-7, 
389-90 

Emergency  Currency  bill, 
458-75 

Tariff  Revision,  441-2 

The  Secret  Caucus,  Control 
of  legislation  by,  298,  304 

The  Use  of  the  Roll  Call, 
416-18 

Organizing  the  Progressives 
against  the  Aldrich  Ma 
chine,  427-8,  436 

The    Progressive    League, 
494-7 

Campaign  for  the  Presidency 

Preliminary  canvass,  500, 
516-20,  536-1 

The  Chicago  Conference, 
532-4 

Opening  the  Campaign,  553- 
5,  558-71,  588,  594,  599, 
602-10,  620-1,  632-5,  762 

Duplicity  of  Roosevelt,  511- 
12,  515-16,  537-40,  546, 
551-2,  556-7,  562,  572-3, 
574-6,  580,  597-8,  612-14, 
616,  619 

The    National    Convention    of 
1912,  644,  653-59 

Meetings  with  Roosevelt 
On  legislation  concerning  coal 

lands,  380,  382 
On   Hepburn   Railroad   Rate 

Bill,  407-10 

On  Railway  valuation,  680-3 

At  Oyster  Bay  on  Initiative, 

Referendum,    and    Recall, 

Railroad    rate    legislation, 

Tariff,  and  the  growth  of 


the  Progressive   movement 
487-9 

Staying     in     the     Republican 
Party,  171-13,  201-3 

La  Follette,  Mrs.,  4,  53,  66-7,  136, 
162,  180,  313-15,  372-3,  430, 
558 

La  Follette,  Fola,  53,  136 

Labor  Vote  and  Legislation,  305-1 1 
Larrabee,  William,  341 
Larsen  "Norsky,"  323 
Lenroot,  Irvine,  255,   264-6,  281, 

341,  454,  516,  550-3,  590,  592, 

597,  602 

Lerum,  Arne,  323 
Lewis,  William  T.,  199 
Liberal  Republican   Party,    17 
Lindbergh,  C.  A.,  520 
Lobby,  Law  Against,  297-8 
Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,   104 
Loeb,  William,  680 
Loftus,  George  S.,  515 
Long,  Chester  I.,  578-9 
Lyon,  W.  P.,  313-4 

Madison  Ring,  The,  45 
Main,  Willett  S.,  45 
Mann,  Homer,  578 
Martin,  Harry  C.,  341 
McCarthy,  Charles,  32  ,^_ 
McCord,  Myron,  81-2  ^ 
McCormick,  Medill,  545,  555-58, 

589-90,  597-9,  602 
McCusker,  Thomas,  643 
McFetridge,  Edward  C.,  140 
McGovern,     Francis,     296,     310, 

647-55,   749 
McHarg,  Ormsby,  581 
McKenna,  Joseph,  98 
McKinley,  William,  52,  91-2,  96, 

98,  100,  102-3,  110-11,  114-15, 

127-33,    170,   200-1,   204,   560, 

734 


804 


INDEX 


McKinley    Bill,    The,    102,    106, 

108-10,  114,  201 
McMillan,  Benton,  98 
McSween,  Angus,  516,  519,  597 
Medill,  Joseph,  250,  604 
Mellen,  Charles  S.,  729-30 
Merriam,  Charles  E.,  516-17,  597- 

602 

Meyer,  B.  H.,  32,  349 
Mills,  Roger  Q.,  52,  59,  98-9,  109 
Miner,  Ben,  5 
Mitchell,  Alexander,  20-1 
Monahan,  James  G.,  256 
Moody,  W.  H.,  382-4 
Morgan,  J.  P.,  581-2,  636,    676, 

693,   718,   729-30 
Morris,  Thomas,  341,  749 
Morris,  Charles  Mrs.,  317 
Morse,  Elmer  A.,  521 
Morton,    Paul,    718 
Munsey,  Frank  A.,  580,  582,  666 
Murdock,  Victor,  124,  520 
National    Progressive   Republican 

League,  The,  494-7 
National   Republican  Convention 

of  1892,  166 
National  Republican  Convention 

of  1904,  327-30 
National  Republican  Convention 

of  1912,  645,  747 
National     Business     League     of 

America,  465-6 
Naval  Stations,  391-96,  433 
Nelson,  John  M.,  208,  454,  521, 

555-8 

Nelson,  Knute,  386,  447,    452 
Nelson  Bill,  The,  387 
New  Haven  Merger  Case,  421-2, 

727-31 

Newman,  A.  W.,   152 
Nicaragua  Canal  Bill,  77-80 
Norris,  George  W.,  516 
Northern   Securities   Case,   731-2 

Oakley,  Frank,  45-6 
O'Connor,  James,   141 
Old  Dane,  The,  208 
O'Laughlin,  J.  C.,  537 


O'Neill,  William,  214 
Overstreet,  Jesse,  737 
Owen,  Walter,  658 

Patronage,  Official,  68-9 
Patrons  of  Husbandry,   18 
Payne,   Henry   C.,   54,    74-5,    77, 

127-31,     137,      170-1,      188-9, 

191,  202,  228,  250,  328-9,  574, 

734 

Payne,  Sereno  E.,  98 
Payne-Aldrich  Tariff  Bill,  104, 

106,  436,  441-52,  477,  489-92, 

617,  718 

Pederson,  Eli,  13 
Penrose,  Boies,  104,  125 
Perkins,  G.  C.,  392 
Perkins,   George  W.,   581-2,   636, 

676,  393,  718,  732,  741 
Pfister,    Charles,    127,    141,    187, 

189,  191,  193,  202,  250-3,  320, 

323 
Phillipp,  Emanuel,  226,  229,  232, 

248-9,  320,  323 
Physicial  Valuation  of  Railways, 

416,     419,     423,     426,     456-7, 

460-2,  681-2 
Pinchot,  Amos,  505,  508,  526,  542, 

550,  588,  590,  593,  596-602,  611 
Pinchot,      Gifford,     482,     485-6, 

502-4,   508,   514-15,   524,   526, 

540-50,    574-7,    586-602,    611- 

615,  632-3 
Pinney,  S.  U.,  141 
Platt,  T.  C.,  574 
Poindexter,  Miles,  516 
Pollock,  Walter  W.,  643 
Pope,  James  E.,  643 
Post,   Louis,   658 
Post   Office   Department   Frauds, 

131 

Potter  Law,  23 
Powell,  J.  W7.,  481-2 
Primary  Nominations,  196-8,  267, 

292-7,  219,  247-8 
Progressive   Group   in   the   U.    S. 

Senate,  39>,  417,  423,  427,  447, 

452         "^ 


INDEX 


805 


Progressive    Republican    League, 

The,  494-7 
Progressive  League  of  Minnesota, 

515 
Progressive  Movement,  The,   18, 

70,  104-5,  126,  445,  483-4,  614, 

746 

Progressive  Party,  The,  757-8 
Protection,     The     Doctrine     of, 

103-6,  111-13 
Prouty,  C.  A.,  341,  349 

Quarles,    Joseph,    V.,     141,     155, 

228,  256,  323,  327 
Quay,  Matthew,  58,  77,  574 
Quick,  Herbert,  654 

Railway  Regulation,  20-3,  118-19, 

Jjftg-fll,  341-63,  399-425 
Railroad  Commission  of  Wiscon 
sin,   350-63 
Railroad   Taxation  in   Wisconsin, 

243-4,  248,  287,  292,  355 
Railroad  Rebates,  286,  291-2,  354 
Railroad  Lobby,  244-5,  248,  254- 

66,  272,  285 

Railroad   Brotherhood,    The,    425 
Randall,   Samuel,   52 
Raymond,   Henry  J.,   250,   604 
Rayner,  Isidor,  373 
Reagan,  John  H.,  89,  117,  119-20, 

341 

Reciprocity,  111-13,  504-5,  622-30 
Reed,  Thomas  B.,  52,  65,  91-101 

126-7 

Reinsch,  Paul,  31-2 
Republican  National   Convention 

of  1912,  645 
Republican  Party,  The,  in  1880, 

15 

Reynolds,  George  M.,  465-6 
Rice,   John  T.,    192 
Richards,  R.  O.,  643 
Roe,  Gilbert  E.,  219,  328,  659-62 

664 
Rogers,    Walter    S.,  516-17,  590, 

597-602 
Roll  Call,  The,  339,  416-18 


Roosevelt,  Theodore: 

His  General  Policy,  95,  478-81 

484,  673-4,  744-5 
Favors  the  Trusts,  484,  582,  617 

683-704 

His  Policy  as  to  the  Railroad 
Companies,  401,  407-10,  480 
678-82,  704 
Supported    by    W'all    St.,    582 

718-32 
His  Relation  to  the  Steel  Trust, 

582 
His  Policy  as  to  Conservation, 

380-90,  481-3,  677 
Has   no    Tariff    Policy,   490-2 

617,   706-18 
As  to  the  Canadian  Pact,  505 

621-30 
On  the  Initiative,  Referendum, 

and    Recall,    488-9,    616 
Opposed  the  Progressive  Move 
ment  in  Wisconsin,  733-42 
His   Policy   as   to   the   General 
Progressive  Movement,  485-6 
496-7,   510,    639-40 
Betrayal  of  La  Follette,  511-  2, 
515-6,  534,  540,  546,  551-2, 
556-7,    562,     572-3,     574-6, 
580,  597-8,  612-14,  616,   619 
Duplicity  as   to    his    own    can 
didacy,  502-3,  505-6,   508-9, 
511-12,  515-16,  528,  534,  537, 
540,  546,  551-2,  562,  572-3, 
574-6,  580,  592,  597-8,  612- 
14,  616,  618,  619 
The  National  Republican  Con 
vention  of  1912,  644-6,  653- 
7,    659-70 

Rose,  David,  280 
Rosen  berry,  M.  B.,  325 
Ross,   Edward   A.,   32 
Rublee,  Horace,  250,  253,  604 
Ryan,  Edward,  22-4 

Sabin,  Ellen,  316 
Sanborn,   A.   W.,    341 
Sanderson,   Edward,  39-40 


806 


INDEX 


Saturday  Lunch  Club,  32 
Sawyer,    Philetus,    53-60,    72-5, 

77-8     82-4,    127,    137-8,    140, 

142-51,    154-61,    165,    168-70, 

172,  181,  184,  189,  190,  201-2, 

227 

Schurz,  Carl,  222 
Scofield,    Edward,    181,  190,  192, 

216-18,  220 
Scott,  N.  B.,  328 
Scott,  W.  A.,  32 
Sentinel,  The,  157-9,  250-4,  272 
Sherman,  John,  52,  89,  93,   110, 

117,    688 

Sherman  Law,  The,  90,  118,  685- 
*       706,  727,  730-1 
Ship  Subsidy  Bill,  80-1 
Siebecker,  Robert  G.,  141-2,  145, 

149-53,  155,  157-8,  212 
Smoot,  Reed,  104 
Socialists,  The,  270 
Southern   Pacific   Railway    Com 
pany,  725-6 
Spensley,  Calvert,  739 
Spofford,  Ainsworth  R.,  121 
Spooner,  John,  45,  114,  127,  170, 

182,    189,    191,   202,    227,    256, 

323,  327-9,  373,  736 
Spooner,  Roger,  182 
Spooner,  Phil,  45 
Spreckels,  Rudolph,  642 
Stalwarts,  The,  242,  274 
Standard  Oil  Company,  117,  464, 

676 
Standpatters,  The,  104,  126,  415, 

419,  453,  458,  518,  735 
State,  The,  208-10,  217 
Steel  Trust,  The,  581-2,  592,  636, 

640,  693,  698 
Steffens,  Lincoln,  407 
Stephenson,  Isaac,  57,  201-2,  220, 

226-8,  296-7,  327,  453-5 
Stevens,  E.  Ray,  247,  262,  316 
Stevens,  Kate  Sabin,  316 
Stickney,  A.  B.,  341 
Stimson,  H.  L.,  491,  493,  514 
Stone,  W.  J.,  469,  473-4 
Stout,  James  H.,  327 


Stewart,  J.  W.,  686,  688 
Stuart,  Alva,  142 
Suffrage  Law,  318 
Sumner,  Charles,  303 

Taft,  William  Howard 

His  Nomination  in  1908,  500-1 

His  Policy  as  to  the  Tariff,  105, 
436-40,  448-9,  451-8,  476-8 

His  Canadian  Pact,  504-5,  622 
3,  626-8,  634 

Alliance  with  Aldrich  and  Can 
non,  437,  484 

His  Policy  as  to  Conservation, 
458,  477 

His  Policy  as  to  the  Railroad 
Companies,  420-4,  456-7 

Opposes  the  Progressives,  69 

The  National  Republican  Con 
vention  of  1912,  644-5,  659-70 

Tariff  Commission,  104-09 

Tax  Commission  of  Wisconsin, 
243-4,  355 

Taxes  on  Wisconsin  Corporations, 
288 

Taylor,  Ezra  B.,  688 

Taylor,  Horace  A.,  181 

Taylor,  Governor,  20 

Tennessee  Coal  and  Iron  Com 
pany,  582,  693 

Thorn,  H.  C.,  171,  173 

Thompson,  Phil,  79 

Treasury  Cases,  140,  153 

Tucker,  Harry  N.,  643 

Turpie,  David,  688 

Tussler,  H.  M.,  216 

Union  League  Club  of  Chicago, 

167 

University  of  Wisconsin,  26-33 
Upham,    W.   H.,    181,    184,    186, 

188-9 

Van  Hise,  Charles  R.,  27,  31-2, 

162 
Van  Valkenberg,  E.  A.,  502,  505, 

508,  516,  520,  524-5 


INDEX  807 

Vilas,  William  F.,  8,  37,   123-4,  Welliver,  Judson  C.,  666 

141  Wheeler,  William  G.,  256 

Voter's  Handbook,  279  White,  William  Allen,  579-80 

Vreeland  Bill,  467  Whittier,  John  G.,  308 

Wickersham,  G.  W.,  420-1,  730-1 

Wall  Street,  582,  741  Wilson-Gorman   Law,   201 

Wanamaker,  R.  M.,  558-61,  574.  Wisconsin  "Machine,"  The,  178, 

576  182,  187,  189,  191,  226 

Warren,  F.E.,  398  Women  and  Public  Service,  311- 
Warren,  Lansing,  251-3  18 

Warner,  William,  417  Wood,  Joseph,  84-6 

Water-Power  Legislation,    363-4  Works,  John  D.,  520 

Watson,  James  E.,  663,  714  Wright,   Nathaniel,   537-8 
Webster,  Sidney,  720-1 

Wellborn,  Olin,  59  Youmans,  Theodora  W.,  317 


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